News Roundup for July 27, 2011
A white supremacist Connecticut blogger convicted for making death threats is asking for charges over some of his more extreme comments to be thrown out. Harold “Hal” Turner is currently serving three years for making death threats against federal judges in Illinois.
A Georgia man who attempted to takeover a courthouse by force has asked to fire his legal team. Darren Wesley Huff is asking to dismiss his lawyers claiming they are incompetent and want to “sell [him] down the river.” Huff is accused of travelling to Tennessee with firearms and ammunition and attempting to make citizens’ arrests of officials in a Chattanooga courthouse for refusing to indict President Obama on charges linked to his birth certificate. Huff has admitted his connections to Georgia militia groups and the Oath Keepers movement.
An Alaska man has received a lighter sentence than expected in a fraud case due to his role as an informant in the case of the Alaska Peacekeepers Militia. Gerald Olson, 36, faced felony charges for defrauding customers of a septic tank business, but was given probation and a suspended sentence. Prosecutors say he helped foil a plot by the Alaska militia group, led by Schaeffer Cox, to kidnap and kill Alaskan state troopers, judges, and public officials.
A jury has finally been selected in the case of accused polygamist leader Warren Jeffs. Nearly 100 potential jurors had been dismissed for admitting that they knew enough about Jeffs to be biased in trial. Jeffs is charged with two counts of sexual assault of a child as well as bigamy. Jeffs faces 119 years in prison if convicted.
