Montana Freemen
Encyclopedia
The Montana Freemen were a Christian Patriot
movement based outside the town of Jordan, Montana
. The members of the group referred to their land as "Justus Township" and had declared themselves no longer under the authority of any outside government. They became the center of public attention in 1996 when they engaged in a prolonged armed standoff with agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
.
and rejected the authority of the federal government of the United States
. They conceived their own system of government
in "Justus Township", including their own versions of common-law court
de jure, banking, and credit
.
Anderson on the Uniform Commercial Code and Bankers Handbook to draw notices of lien
against public officials. The liens were then allegedly sold to generate equity in order to fund an effort to make a "firm offer to pay off the national debt
." The Freemen claimed that the liens conformed to the Uniform Commercial Code
, and that their township's court had an interest in a tort
claim
for damages incurred by the named public officials for violations of their oaths of office. They viewed support of the corporate credit system as an unconstitutional act which would incrementally "...[deprive] the people of their property until [their] posterity wakes up homeless..."., a paraphrased quotation attributed to Thomas Jefferson
.
proceedings were initiated against the farm that contained Justus Township. The Freemen refused to be evicted from the land. They had also conducted their own mock trials
of numerous public officials, and issued their own writ of execution against a federal judge. The FBI investigated the group and initiated a sting operation aimed at one of the Freemen's financial programs, which led to the arrest of two members of the group in March, 1996. The FBI also had warrants for eight other persons suspected to be in the farm, but before they were able to arrest them an armed confrontation developed and the FBI withdrew to a safe distance in order to avoid violence. The similar standoff in Waco, Texas
involving the Branch Davidians was still fresh in the public mind, and the FBI was extremely cautious in trying to prevent a recurrence of those violent and tragic events . After 81 days of negotiations, the Freemen surrendered to authorities.
" which can be sold or traded.
LeRoy Schweitzer was convicted of conspiracy, bank fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, false claims to the IRS, interstate transportation of stolen property, threats against public officials, armed robbery of a television news crew, and firearms violations. He received a 22 year sentence for 25 convictions in a South Carolina federal prison, but was moved to the Administrative Maximum (ADX) facility
at the Florence Federal Correctional Complex at Florence, Colorado in 2006 after two men who identified themselves as "Montana Marshals" attempted to free Schweitzer from the prison. He passed away in the ADX on September 20, 2011.
Members have contended in various shortwave
and talk radio
interviews that several of the liens were sold into the offshore banking market. Some members and members of their families have claimed that the US Government's tactics were used to coerce Schweitzer and others to release the liens on public officials.
Scott Roeder, convicted on January 22, 2010, for the murder of Dr. George Tiller
, was reportedly involved with the Freemen.
On 7 April 2008, Russell Dean Landers had his 11-year and 3-month sentence extended by 15 years for attempting to extort his release from prison. He and two other inmates at the federal prison in El Reno, Oklahoma
had demanded millions of dollars from officials for the use of their names, which they claimed were "copyrighted." They were found guilty of "conspiring to impede the duties of federal prison officials and extortion in (their) efforts to gain release from prison by making financial demands on prison staff and attempting to seize their property."
On 6 April 2010, Daniel E. Peterson was sentenced to additional time, for filing bogus liens from prison against three federal judges. One of the judges targeted was the judge who sentenced Peterson to prison originally. Petersen was sentenced in 1996 to 15 years. He was convicted on 19 of 20 counts, which included bank fraud and armed robbery. While serving his sentence in a federal prison in Minnesota, Petersen devised a scheme in which to retaliate against three judges in his case.
Federal prosecutors, after investigating, found that Petersen invented a company that supposedly held assets that included a $100 trillion default judgment against the United States. He then sold “shares" of the phony company to fellow inmates and others. He claimed these shares were backed by “redemption certificates" to be redeemed when the judgment was collected.
The judgment he referred to came from a self-created court, after former Secretary of State
Madeline Albright declined to respond to his demands. He was demanding $100 trillion dollars, as well as $1 billion per day in interest for unlawfully confining him.
Petersen followed up by filing liens against property owned by the three federal judges, as well as offering bounties for the arrest of the same judges. The purpose was to entice someone to bring the three judges to Minnesota, in order to respond to his liens.
A 2011 NPR
report claimed some of the people associated with this case were imprisoned in a highly restrictive Communication Management Unit
.
Christian Patriot
The Christian Patriot movement is a movement of American political commentators and activists. They promote various interpretations of history and law with the common theme that the federal government has turned against the ideas of liberty and individual rights behind the American Revolution, and...
movement based outside the town of Jordan, Montana
Jordan, Montana
Jordan is a town in and the county seat of Garfield County, Montana, United States. The population was 364 at the 2000 census.-History:Originally settled in 1896, Jordan received a post office on July 11, 1899...
. The members of the group referred to their land as "Justus Township" and had declared themselves no longer under the authority of any outside government. They became the center of public attention in 1996 when they engaged in a prolonged armed standoff with agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
.
Philosophy
The Montana Freemen espoused belief in the doctrine of individual sovereigntySovereign citizen movement
The sovereign citizen movement is a loose network of American litigants, commentators and financial scheme promoters, classified as an "extremist anti-government group" by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation....
and rejected the authority of the federal government of the United States
Federal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...
. They conceived their own system of government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
in "Justus Township", including their own versions of common-law court
Common law
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
de jure, banking, and credit
Credit (finance)
Credit is the trust which allows one party to provide resources to another party where that second party does not reimburse the first party immediately , but instead arranges either to repay or return those resources at a later date. The resources provided may be financial Credit is the trust...
.
Liens
LeRoy Schweitzer and the Freemen used inter aliaInter Alia
-Track listing:# Inter Alia# Outfox'd # Righteous Badass # The Altogether feat. Bix, Apt, UNIVERSE ARM and Cal# The Day-to-Daily# Trouble Brewing # The Prestidigitator# The Force...
Anderson on the Uniform Commercial Code and Bankers Handbook to draw notices of lien
Lien
In law, a lien is a form of security interest granted over an item of property to secure the payment of a debt or performance of some other obligation...
against public officials. The liens were then allegedly sold to generate equity in order to fund an effort to make a "firm offer to pay off the national debt
United States public debt
The United States public debt is the money borrowed by the federal government of the United States at any one time through the issue of securities by the Treasury and other federal government agencies...
." The Freemen claimed that the liens conformed to the Uniform Commercial Code
Uniform Commercial Code
The Uniform Commercial Code , first published in 1952, is one of a number of uniform acts that have been promulgated in conjunction with efforts to harmonize the law of sales and other commercial transactions in all 50 states within the United States of America.The goal of harmonizing state law is...
, and that their township's court had an interest in a tort
Tort
A tort, in common law jurisdictions, is a wrong that involves a breach of a civil duty owed to someone else. It is differentiated from a crime, which involves a breach of a duty owed to society in general...
claim
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
for damages incurred by the named public officials for violations of their oaths of office. They viewed support of the corporate credit system as an unconstitutional act which would incrementally "...[deprive] the people of their property until [their] posterity wakes up homeless..."., a paraphrased quotation attributed to Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
.
Bank fraud
The Freemen were known to produce their own very realistic counterfeit checks and money orders, sometimes ordering items and deliberately overpaying so that they could demand refunds. In 1995 members used a note drawn from an account belonging to the U.S. District Court to try to purchase 1.4 million dollars' worth of firearms, ammunition, and body armor.Standoff
In late 1994 foreclosureForeclosure
Foreclosure is the legal process by which a mortgage lender , or other lien holder, obtains a termination of a mortgage borrower 's equitable right of redemption, either by court order or by operation of law...
proceedings were initiated against the farm that contained Justus Township. The Freemen refused to be evicted from the land. They had also conducted their own mock trials
Kangaroo court
A kangaroo court is "a mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted".The outcome of a trial by kangaroo court is essentially determined in advance, usually for the purpose of ensuring conviction, either by going through the motions of manipulated procedure or...
of numerous public officials, and issued their own writ of execution against a federal judge. The FBI investigated the group and initiated a sting operation aimed at one of the Freemen's financial programs, which led to the arrest of two members of the group in March, 1996. The FBI also had warrants for eight other persons suspected to be in the farm, but before they were able to arrest them an armed confrontation developed and the FBI withdrew to a safe distance in order to avoid violence. The similar standoff in Waco, Texas
Waco Siege
The Waco siege began on February 28, 1993, and ended violently 50 days later on April 19. The siege began when the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms attempted to execute a search warrant at the Branch Davidian ranch at Mount Carmel, a property located east-northeast of Waco,...
involving the Branch Davidians was still fresh in the public mind, and the FBI was extremely cautious in trying to prevent a recurrence of those violent and tragic events . After 81 days of negotiations, the Freemen surrendered to authorities.
Aftermath
Statutes were subsequently changed in Montana, and eventually elsewhere, to require that any notices of liens filed had to have a current corporate county judge or clerk signature to be held valid as "commercial paperCommercial paper
In the global money market, commercial paper is an unsecured promissory note with a fixed maturity of 1 to 270 days. Commercial Paper is a money-market security issued by large banks and corporations to get money to meet short term debt obligations , and is only backed by an issuing bank or...
" which can be sold or traded.
LeRoy Schweitzer was convicted of conspiracy, bank fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, false claims to the IRS, interstate transportation of stolen property, threats against public officials, armed robbery of a television news crew, and firearms violations. He received a 22 year sentence for 25 convictions in a South Carolina federal prison, but was moved to the Administrative Maximum (ADX) facility
ADX Florence
The United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility is a supermax prison for men that is located in unincorporated Fremont County, Colorado, United States, south of Florence. It is unofficially known as ADX Florence, Florence ADMAX, Supermax, or The Alcatraz of the Rockies...
at the Florence Federal Correctional Complex at Florence, Colorado in 2006 after two men who identified themselves as "Montana Marshals" attempted to free Schweitzer from the prison. He passed away in the ADX on September 20, 2011.
Members have contended in various shortwave
Shortwave
Shortwave radio refers to the upper MF and all of the HF portion of the radio spectrum, between 1,800–30,000 kHz. Shortwave radio received its name because the wavelengths in this band are shorter than 200 m which marked the original upper limit of the medium frequency band first used...
and talk radio
Talk radio
Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often feature interviews with a number of different guests. Talk radio typically includes an element of listener participation, usually by broadcasting live...
interviews that several of the liens were sold into the offshore banking market. Some members and members of their families have claimed that the US Government's tactics were used to coerce Schweitzer and others to release the liens on public officials.
Scott Roeder, convicted on January 22, 2010, for the murder of Dr. George Tiller
George Tiller
George Richard Tiller, MD was an American physician from Wichita, Kansas. He was the medical director of a clinic in Wichita, Women's Health Care Services, one of only three nationwide which provided abortions after the 21st week of pregnancy .Pro-life group Operation Rescue kept a daily vigil...
, was reportedly involved with the Freemen.
Members of the Montana Freemen and their sentences
- LeRoy M. Schweitzer - 22 years. Died in federal prison on September 20, 2011 of natural causes.
- Emmett Clark - (Pled guilty) Time servedTime servedIn criminal law, "time served" describes a sentence where the defendant is credited immediately after the guilty verdict with the time spent in remand awaiting trial. The time is usually subtracted from the sentence, with only the balance being served after the verdict...
plus 3 years under supervision - Richard Clark - 12 years
- James Hance - 5 years, 7 months
- Lavon T. Hanson - (Pled guilty with plea bargainPlea bargainA plea bargain is an agreement in a criminal case whereby the prosecutor offers the defendant the opportunity to plead guilty, usually to a lesser charge or to the original criminal charge with a recommendation of a lighter than the maximum sentence.A plea bargain allows criminal defendants to...
), 1 year, 1 dayYear and a day ruleThe year and a day rule has been a common traditional length of time for establishing differences in legal status. The phrase "year and a day rule" is most commonly associated with the former common law standard that death could not be legally attributed to acts or omissions that occurred more... - Dana Dudley Landers - (Pled guilty) 1 year, 9 months with credit for 2 years and 3 months already served
On 7 April 2008, Russell Dean Landers had his 11-year and 3-month sentence extended by 15 years for attempting to extort his release from prison. He and two other inmates at the federal prison in El Reno, Oklahoma
El Reno, Oklahoma
El Reno is a city in Canadian County, Oklahoma, United States, in the central part of the state. A part of the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Statistical Area, El Reno is west of downtown Oklahoma City...
had demanded millions of dollars from officials for the use of their names, which they claimed were "copyrighted." They were found guilty of "conspiring to impede the duties of federal prison officials and extortion in (their) efforts to gain release from prison by making financial demands on prison staff and attempting to seize their property."
On 6 April 2010, Daniel E. Peterson was sentenced to additional time, for filing bogus liens from prison against three federal judges. One of the judges targeted was the judge who sentenced Peterson to prison originally. Petersen was sentenced in 1996 to 15 years. He was convicted on 19 of 20 counts, which included bank fraud and armed robbery. While serving his sentence in a federal prison in Minnesota, Petersen devised a scheme in which to retaliate against three judges in his case.
Federal prosecutors, after investigating, found that Petersen invented a company that supposedly held assets that included a $100 trillion default judgment against the United States. He then sold “shares" of the phony company to fellow inmates and others. He claimed these shares were backed by “redemption certificates" to be redeemed when the judgment was collected.
The judgment he referred to came from a self-created court, after former Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
Madeline Albright declined to respond to his demands. He was demanding $100 trillion dollars, as well as $1 billion per day in interest for unlawfully confining him.
Petersen followed up by filing liens against property owned by the three federal judges, as well as offering bounties for the arrest of the same judges. The purpose was to entice someone to bring the three judges to Minnesota, in order to respond to his liens.
A 2011 NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
report claimed some of the people associated with this case were imprisoned in a highly restrictive Communication Management Unit
Communication Management Unit
Communication Management Unit is a recent designation for a self-contained group within a facility in the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons that severely restricts, manages and monitors all outside communication of inmates in the unit.-Origins:As part of the Bush Administration's War on...
.
See also
- Posse Comitatus
- Ruby RidgeRuby RidgeRuby Ridge was the site of a violent confrontation and siege in northern Idaho in 1992. It involved Randy Weaver, his family, Weaver's friend Kevin Harris, and agents of the United States Marshals Service and Federal Bureau of Investigation...
(1992) - Scott Roeder