Montana Webcast Extremist Convicted of Twin Firearms Charges
An antigovernment extremist who advocated killing police, judges and burning down a courthouse has been found guilty by a federal jury in Montana of possession of a machine gun and failing to register a firearm.
William Krisstofer Wolf, 52, who broadcast his antigovernment, extremist views on a weekly webcast called “The Montana Republic,” was arrested in April after buying an illegal shotgun from an undercover FBI agent he only knew as “Dirty.” The sawed-off, fully automatic Russian Saiga-12 shotgun was capable of shooting 10 rounds in two seconds, court documents say.
Wolf, convicted last week by a U.S. District Court jury in Billings, faces up to 10 years in prison on each of the two counts when he’s sentenced next year. He will remain in custody until then.
On his webcasts, Wolf blasted the federal immigration policies of the Obama Administration and advocated “direct action to restore a Constitution-based government.” Wolf sought out high-powered weaponry, including a flame-thrower, for a coming "second American revolution."
During his webcasts, West also discussed “taking out bridges or power grids and seizing law enforcement vehicles and weapons,” court documents say.
Wolf‘s interest in buying illegal firearms began one year ago during secret meetings with an FBI informant who introduced Wolf to the undercover FBI agent known as “Dirty.”
During those meetings, Wolf discussed building a “blowtorch gun” with a 150-foot range to kill police officers wearing body armor. He also discussed using the flamethrower to destroy a “BearCAT” armored vehicle recently acquired by the Bozeman Police Department SWAT team.
In another broadcast, Wolf said federal judges who overturned gay marriage bans should be considered “viable targets” for Patriots “because they violated the Constitution.”
Before his arrest, the Bozeman, Mont., resident repeatedly expressed contempt for local judges, law enforcement, the county attorney, city and county commissioners and federal government employees, the documents say. He talked about destroying the Gallatin County Courthouse in Bozeman with napalm.
Then, when a “sovereign citizen” a was arrested, Wolf urged his fellow Patriots to make citizen’s arrests of judges involved in the case and “stated his intention to use a means of force if necessary.”
Authorities said they concluded after a 14-month investigation that there was no evidence of a wider conspiracy, although they did question one of Wolf’s associates, Gary Hunt, a California man who was a frequent guest on Wolf’s webcasts.
Hunt said in an interview that Wolf was targeted because he was a “threat to the government,” the Billings Gazette reported last week.
