Saugus Couple Implicated in White Supremacist Probe : Investigation: Search warrants show that the pair may have supplied some hate group members with weapons. Neither of the two has been arrested in the case.

As they were charging eight suspected white supremacists with federal weapons offenses 12 days ago, federal agents also turned up evidence that a Saugus couple may have supplied some hate group members with weapons, according to sources and five search warrants filed Monday.

According to the warrants, agents searched two locations connected to Christopher James Berwick and Rebecca Berwick. At a mobile home park in Saugus, the agents seized 11 firearms, a silencer and other gun parts. A search of Christopher Berwick’s van at the Burbank business where he works turned up a number of other gun parts, according to the warrants.

Neither of the Berwicks is a member of a white supremacist group, sources close to the investigation said, but the Berwicks are under investigation as possible weapons suppliers and may be linked to one of the suspects arrested during a series of raids July 15.

“They are possible suspects,” said one source familiar with the investigation. “They may have been a source of some of these weapons.”

The Berwicks, contacted at their motor home in Acton, refused to comment Monday night.

The Berwicks are the latest people to be connected with white supremacist gun trafficking in Southern California. On July 15, federal agents filed charges against six adults and two juveniles accused of violating weapons laws.

One of the adults, Christopher David Fisher, was accused of leading the Fourth Reich Skinheads, which authorities say plotted to kill Rodney G. King and attack the First African Methodist Episcopal Church. The two juveniles arrested also were members of the Fourth Reich Skinheads.

None of the other adult suspects were connected with the Fourth Reich Skinheads, but all were charged with federal weapons offenses.

Although neither of the Berwicks is named in federal affidavits, one of the suspects in custody, Christian Gilbert Tony Nadal, allegedly told an undercover FBI agent and a confidential informant that he was working with a machinist who could build silencers and other gun parts. Many of the parts seized from Berwick’s Saugus mobile home match those described in the complaint against Nadal and his wife, Doris Nadal.

It was not clear if either of the Berwicks might be arrested, but indictments are expected this week against Nadal and other suspects.

Associates of Christopher Berwick said he has worked at the Aluminum Dip Braze Co. in Burbank on and off for 10 years. The company’s operations manager, Byron Love, said Berwick is “just a nice guy” and that he had never known him to have been in any trouble with the police.

“This has all been really strange to us,” said Love, adding that a large group of federal agents arrived at the company July 15 to search Berwick’s van. “It caught us all off guard. They’re just regular people.”

Barry Beckman, owner of the firm, said Berwick read gun magazines, but added that he is a fisherman and hunter and that his interest in guns was not out of the ordinary. “He’s a man of humor,” Beckman said. “This seems way off his character.”

Berwick lived at Oasis Park, a 60-unit mobile home park, for 1 1/2 years, according to the management. One park worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “He didn’t like Iraqis, Jews, nobody.”

The Berwicks moved from that mobile home park in a remote area of Saugus to a nearby facility in Acton the day after agents searched their unit, neighbors said.

The warrants reveal that, in addition to searching Berwick’s home, office and van, agents seized a large supply of weapons and white supremacist literature from the homes of the Nadals, Fisher and one other suspect, 17-year-old Carl Daniel Boese of Crestline.

The Nadals’ living room was full of Nazi literature and paraphernalia, the warrants indicate. One room had a Nazi skull-and-helmet coin bank; among the books seized from the Nadal home were “Adolf Hitler: The Unknown Artist,” “Hoax of the 20th Century” and “The Hitler File.”

On one of their bookshelves was a framed photograph of Hitler, and agents found more than a dozen high-powered weapons in an upstairs bedroom. The warrants also say that agents found half a marijuana cigarette at the Nadals’ home.

No guns were found at the home of Christopher Fisher, the alleged leader of the Fourth Reich Skinheads. But the warrants do indicate that agents searched a Dodge Caravan and found two knives, skinhead literature and a book titled “Hitler’s Propaganda Machine.”

That search also turned up a baseball cap with the number 88 printed on it, according to the warrant. Hate crime experts say 88 is shorthand for “Heil Hitler” because H is the eighth letter of the alphabet.

Agents also reportedly found a Molotov cocktail in a utility box outside Fisher’s home.

The fifth location searched July 15 was the Crestline home where Dan Boese lives with his family. Agents say they seized letters and other documents from Boese’s room, including a purchase ticket for an 88 hat and documents relating to white power and the Waco, Tex., deaths of cult leader David Koresh and dozens of his followers.

In addition, the warrants reveal that agents seized electrical wiring and a board with a mousetrap attached to it. Although the warrant does not explain the significance of that mousetrap, the affidavit filed against Boese makes it clear why it was seized.

According to that affidavit, Boese told the FBI undercover agent on July 11 “that he was working on a diagram for a mousetrap switch which could be used to activate a tripwire to detonate an explosive device.”

Times staff writer Chip Johnson contributed to this story.