After mistrial, Freemen members to be retried
FACTNet Alert
July 24, 1998
Last week, a federal jury in Montana, USA found four leaders of the anti-government Montana Freemen group were guilty of conspiracy against the US banking system, but the jury was deadlocked on conspiracy charges against eight other defendants and on other charges in the indictment. As a result of the deadlock, Judge John C. Coughenour declared a mistrial on the undecided charges, which was about half of the total 126 charges.
Tuesday prosecuters announced that they will retry 11 of the 12 defendants from the previous trial on the remaining charges. The twelfth defendant will not be tried again because he was found guilty on all charges brought against him.
Leaders LeRoy Schweitzer, Daniel Petersen, Dale Jacobi and Russell Landers, who were convicted on other charges relating to robbery last week, were convicted of conspiring to defraud four banks, which prosecuters held was an attempt to attack the American bank system. According to the Star Tribune [July 9, 1998], "The Freemen issued 3,432 bogus checks totaling $15.5 billion to followers nationwide."
In another trial, on July 2, a jury found Freemen Rodney Skurdal and Richard Clark guilty of threatening to kidnap and murder a federal judge.
The Freemen members were arrested in 1996 after a 81-day standoff at their Justus Ranch in Montana with the FBI, which ended peacefully. The Freemen claimed the ranch was not subject to United States jurisdiction, printed their own money orders, and hold white separatist views.
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