Nearly two years after a group of Christian anti-government Hutaree militia members were arrested in Michigan for allegedly plotting an attack on police, new details are emerging in the run-up to their trial.
Defense lawyers revealed that the government’s confidential informant in the case was arrested after shooting a gun off seven feet from his wife, stabbed himself with a hunting knife while out on probation and had his wife falsely imprisoned over the incident.
Federal prosecutors, meanwhile, have indicated they want to use conspiracy-mongering videos and books found in possession of members of the Hutaree militia in the trial. Hutaree members were evidently fans of Sept. 11 conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, a short-wave radio host named Mark Koernke who warned about the so-called “New World Order,” and a book written by a man who thought aliens were involved in the U.S. government and who was killed after resisting arrest and shooting an officer in the head.
Other anti-government DVDs found in possession of various defendants included:
- “Loose Change,” a Sept. 11 conspiracy film,
- “Fall of the Republic,” which shows how an “offshore corporate cartel is bankrupting the US economy by design,”
- “Waco – Rules of Engagement,” perhaps a strange choice for the prosecutor’s list given that the film is pretty mainstream and was nominated for an Academy Award,
- “One Nation Under Siege,” which presents “the massive and ceaseless control projected onto an unsuspecting populace by a government that seems to have questionable motives and mendacious answers,”
- “Endgame,” an Alex Jones film
- “The Obama Deceptions,” another Alex Jones movie,
- “Wake Up or Waco,”
- “The Legacy of William Cooper,”
- “Bohemian Grove,” another Jones film,
- “9/11 Road to Tyranny,” Jones, once again
Prosecutors are also upset that defense lawyers for the eight militia members on trial didn’t seek concurrence from the government before filing a motion that included “sensitive allegations, in a publicly filed document, regarding the medical histories of two federal witnesses.” They said that the domestic dispute incidents involving Daniel Murray occurred after the confidential informant’s last contract with any member of the Hutaree, which happened on or around Jan. 17, 2010.
Jury selection in the case was proving difficult on Thursday, the Detroit Free Press reports:
As of 1 p.m., after 15 interviews, U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts had moved seven prospective jurors to into the pool for a total of 18. The goal is to pick 50 by Friday, then whittle it down to the final panel of 12 jurors and four alternates.
Those picked this morning include a white male with a drunken driving conviction from 1991, an automotive worker who belongs to a “skeptical society” that challenges unconventional scientific beliefs, a teacher who admitted she felt the defendants were “probably guilty,” and an unemployed white male who owns a rifle and a shotgun.
