Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 21, 1995 TAG: 9509210087
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It may not be the best way to endear oneself to the judge who may be imposing one's sentence, but Stump has little regard for a federal judicial system he believes is illegitimate.
During a recess in his trial Monday, Stump served the lawsuit on U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser, Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Wolthuis and ATF Special Agent Scott Fairburn.
He's suing them, he said Wednesday, "because I'm being coerced into cooperating in this procedure."
"The very existence of this court in the Commonwealth of Virginia is in violation of the Constitution," Stump charged.
So he filed the lawsuit against the three in the Pulaski County Courthouse - a court he does recognize as legitimate - on the opening day of his federal trial on illegal weapon charges.
Stump was indicted last summer after the ATF infiltrated the Blue Ridge Hunt Club, a Pulaski County militia whose members believed they needed to arm themselves for the day the government turns against its citizens. Their activities included target practicing with rifles equipped with illegal silencers.
Hunt Club founder James Roy Mullins, who pleaded guilty and is serving five years in a federal prison, testified Wednesday that it was common knowledge in the club that he was making homemade silencers, but said he wasn't sure whether Stump ever handled one.
"I don't remember talking to Mr. Stump about the silencers, I really don't," Mullins told Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Wolthuis. Tapes of secretly recorded conversations last year indicate Mullins wanted Stump, a machinist, to buy a lathe to alter weapons. Mullins testified that was a story he told other people, but didn't discuss with Stump.
The government's informant testified that Stump fired a rifle equipped with one of Mullins' silencers and that Stump took the silencers to a club meeting.
Any attachment to a gun that reduces its sound is considered a silencer, and permission must be obtained from the government before someone can make one, ATF agents testified. Mullins' silencers were made of galvanized metal piping, fitted over regular rifles equipped with altered barrels.
Testimony showed that the informant, Raeford Nelson Thompson, did more than infiltrate the group; he helped start it with Mullins and encouraged its activities. He testified he was careful not to encourage any illegal activity, per his instructions from ATF Special Agent Scott Fairburn.
But Mullins said Thompson talked about linking the group with the Ku Klux Klan and about attacking government infrastructure and killing people.
Stump is trying to convince the jury that Thompson was behind many of the group's radical ideas and that Thompson entrapped him and others into committing weapons violations.
The prosecution rested its case Wednesday, after presenting witnesses from the Blue Ridge Hunt Club who testified that Stump helped organize the group's second meeting, where the silencers were used. They also testified that he knew about Mullins' silencers, which could indicate he was part of a conspiracy to violate gun laws.
Members of the fledgling militia spent most of their time talking about politics, target practicing and worrying about being infiltrated by the government. Too late, they found out that Thompson was wearing a wire for the ATF.
Thompson testified that he met Stump in the fall of 1993 and encouraged him to meet Mullins. In March 1994, Thompson met with ATF Agent Fairburn and became a "registered confidential informant."
Stump, who is representing himself, got Thompson to acknowledge during cross-examination that he actually met Stump just a month before he became an informant, and not six months before as Thompson testified earlier. The difference is important to Stump's defense that Thompson set him up by luring him into Mullins' circle after - rather than before - Thompson was aware of Mullins' illegal activities.
Meanwhile, Kiser on Wednesday dismissed a juror whose son and daughter-in-law are awaiting trial in federal court on drug charges. Wolthuis, who was involved in that case early on and questioned the son before a grand jury, did not recognize the name of the juror.
"The possibility of bias ... looms rather large," Wolthuis told Kiser before the day's proceedings began.
In replacing the juror with the lone alternate, Kiser told him, "I'm sure you could sit impartially, but it's the appearance of the thing that requires I dismiss you. It's certainly no black mark against you."
If convicted, Stump faces up to 25 years in prison.
by CNB