New charges filed in alleged murder plot(Alaska RW Militia Members)

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Anchorage Daily News

Fairbanks-area militia members face new charges they plotted to kill a federal judge, a member of the judge's family and an IRS employee, and, as part of a larger group, gathered illegal weapons to carry out the attacks, according to a U.S. attorney.

Karen Loeffler, U.S. Attorney for Alaska, on Thursday announced new charges against four Fairbanks-area residents who were arrested on different charges last week. State prosecutors last week described all four as senior members of the Alaska Peacekeepers Militia.

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Lonnie G. Vernon, 55, and wife Karen Vernon, 64, were charged with conspiracy to murder a U.S. District Court judge who was presiding over a case involving their unpaid taxes, and with threatening to kill the judge and the judge's family member. They are also accused of conspiring to kill an IRS employee, and Lonnie Vernon is charged with illegally possessing a handgun with a silencer. For Lonnie Vernon, the new indictment replaces earlier charges he alone threatened the judge.

In the second indictment, militia founder Francis Schaeffer Cox, 27, Lonnie Vernon, and Coleman L. Barney, 36, were charged with conspiracy to possess unregistered destructive devices, and other weapons charges. Cox is accused of illegally having a machine gun and a silencer.




Read more: http://www.adn.com/2011/03/17/1761531/new-charges-in-case-to-kill-judge.html

[old mark]

1. K&R- Great-I hope this is going to stick...nt

[tanyev]

2. I find it interesting that the 27 year old is named "Francis Schaeffer" Cox.

Suggests to me that he was raised by very devout fundies. I wonder if Frank Schaeffer Jr. will weigh in on this story?

[Judi Lynn]

3. Here's info. on Francis Schaeffer Cox, named in the 2nd indictment:

BREAKING: Alaska Militia Members Arrested for Plot to Kidnap or Kill Police
March 11, 2011 12:14 pm ET by David Holthouse

http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org.nyud.net:8090/static/images/schaeffercox.jpg

~snip~
"Back in March, right around the time he was organizing his militia ... Cox responded to a distress call on the Liberty Bell Network, an online community of anti-New World Order conspiracy theorists, which sends out mass email bulletins whenever one of its members feels his or her constitutional rights are being violated."

"In this case, a Liberty Bell Network member in Fairbanks claimed that police were conducting a warrantless search of his residence. (Police said they were responding to a 911 hang-up). Cox arrived on the scene armed with a concealed Ruger .380 semiautomatic pistol. Alaska state law requires that anyone carrying a concealed firearm must immediately notify any law enforcement officer they come into contact with of the concealed weapon.

"Cox, who doesn't regard state or federal laws as valid, did not do so and was subsequently charged with a crime."

Cox is a self-declared "sovereign citizen," a movement that preaches violent resistance to the federal and Alaska state government.

In a major report covering the rise of the sovereign citizen movement in recent years and the corresponding violence against law enforcement officers, the Southern Poverty Law Center last fall characterized it as a "sprawling subculture" of "hundreds of thousands of far-right extremists who believe that they -- not judges, juries, law enforcement or elected officials -- get to decide which laws to obey and which to ignore, and who don't think they should have to pay taxes."

More:
http://www.adn.com/2011/03/17/1761531/new-charges-in-case-to-kill-judge.html

[CatholicEdHead]

4. In other words that movement attracts self centered selfish people

if they think none of society's laws have any meaning to them.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Absolutely. I can't imagine how they rationalize it to themselves, but they definitely do. n/t

[dogfacedboy]

5. The only acceptable militia monkeys are the ones...

...that are imprisoned, or dead. Period.

[Astraea]

6. I wish these freaks would just get off the grid,

live in the woods or on one of Alaska's many islands if they don't want to be part of society. Instead of trying to murder judges and tax officials, why don't they just become the cavemen they so closely resemble, and seem to aspire to be?