The FBI informant who brought down an Alaska militia headed by Schaeffer Cox last year admitted this week that he ran drugs for the Hells Angels motorcycle gang before he began working with the feds.
The federal trial of Cox, Coleman Barney and Lonnie Vernon began earlier this month and could last several weeks. They are charged with plotting to murder government and law enforcement officials.
The Anchorage Daily News reports that 37-year-old Gerald “J.R.” Olson worked as a “prospect” for the Angels and hauled drugs from Washington state to Alaska for 17 months. He said he was later charged with felonies for stealing a mini front-end loader, according to the paper.
The FBI, had given Olson $77,000 to help cover expenses and move his wife and children out of Alaska, according to the Alaska Dispatch. When a defense lawyer asked him how much he hoped to earn for his services, Olson said his opening bid would be $300,000.
U.S. District Judge Robert J. Bryan had earlier denied the government’s request to prevent any evidence relating to “Self-Defense (including any reference to the events of “Ruby Ridge”), Religious Belief or Membership, Innocent Possession, Nullification and Entrapment,” from being introduced. The government had maintained that such defenses were “irrelevant and inappropriate.”
