TWT #165 –

On June 14th, 1996, 8 members of the Montana Freemen surrendered to the FBI after an 81-day armed standoff and were sentenced to prison for “false claims to the IRS.”

When you think about Al Capone, you don’t think about tax evasion.

When you think about Tim Allen, you don’t think about 1.5 pounds of cocaine.

And when you think about the FBI embroiled in an almost three month long armed standoff with a religious group in the woods of Montana, you don’t think about mail fraud.

But maybe you should.

The Montana Freemen were a group of anti-government wahoo’s located in… Montana. They established their own township called “Justus Township” and decided that the US government couldn’t be a part of their super-secret group.

Apparently this was part of Justus Township…not that cool looking if you ask me.

After their establishment, the Freemen engaged in a few extracurricular activities that the US gov didn’t like very much.

The leader of the Freeman, LeRoy Schweitzer, was pretty much a master swindler. When William Stanton’s farm got foreclosed upon, Schweitzer offered him a $3.8 million loan to cover his debt, Schweitzer just forgot to mention that the loan was literally worthless. But that didn’t stop Stanton from appreciating what Schweitzer did and joining the Freemen himself.

When officials still came after his property, Stanton then threatened to hang a sheriff by a bridge, and set out a $1 million bounty on a police officer’s head.

Stanton also became an “honorable justice” of a “Common Law Supreme Court,” which supposedly allowed him to issue a $50 million lawsuit against the Governor of Montana.

My understanding is that the Freemen did not believe that corporate companies had the right to establish credit systems that put individual people into debt. They then saw that any government official supporting those corporations’ claims were violating their oath of office. Because of this, the Freemen had a substantiated tort claim against those public officials.

Essentially: The people are due reparations because civil authorities put the interest of corporations over the interests of the people.

SO the Montana Freeman issued liens over the property belonging to public officials. Because Schweitzer was a swindler, and Stanton a “judge,” the Freeman drafted up their own legal documents and attempted to sell the liens to outside parties in order to, apparently, pay off the US national debt.

Anyway, the Freemen got very good at creating counterfeit checks and money orders. To get some real, hard cash, they would sometimes order an item and purposefully write a check for more than the item was worth, and then demand cash back for the outstanding amount.

(Honestly, this just convinces me that business owners in the 1990’s were absolute idiots).

Finally in early 1995, Stanton was arrested by the FBI (remember that $1 mil bounty?) and sentenced to 10 years.

The Freeman then started planning to kidnap the attorney who prosecuted Stanton (Nick Murnion) and the judge that sentenced him. The plan was to try them in the Freemen court, find them guilty, and sentence them to death…

On March 3rd, two Freemen were stopped for driving without a license plate. The officer searched the car and found armor-piercing ammo, $60,000 in gold and silver, duct tape, two cameras, radio gear… and a map of the town with circles around Murnion’s house. They were obviously arrested.

Later that night, two other armed Freeman arrive at the county jail and demanded that the contents of the truck be returned. They were also arrested on the spot.

This is a screenshot from the movie “Hell or High Water” but I thought it really fit in nicely here.

Not long after, the FBI approached the farm where “Justus Township” was located… and found themselves face-to-face with armed Freemen. Because of the other recent standoffs between the government and civilians (aka Waco), the Fed decided not to rush things.

And so, exactly 24 ears ago today, after 81 days of negotiations, the Freeman laid down their arms and surrendered to the FBI.

Unfortunately for the Freeman, the gov takes mail fraud VERY seriously and all were sentenced to prison.

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