Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 22, 1995 TAG: 9509220098
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Stump had been representing himself during his four-day federal trial on weapons violations, but he turned over his closing argument to David Damico, whom the judge appointed to act as Stump's standby counsel if he needed legal advice.
The jurors began deliberating at 3:30 p.m. and U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser sent them home at 6 p.m. They will resume deliberating at 9:30 a.m. today.
Stump lost his composure when a neighbor testified about what a good guy he was. He and his mother, serving as his legal assistant, sat at the defense table and wiped away tears after Michael Turnmyre of Pulaski called Stump "the kind of neighbor you pray" to have.
Although keeping his defense strategy to himself, Stump has turned more and more to Damico - who sits apart from Stump and his mother - for advice throughout the week.
A self-described "strict constitutionalist," Stump believes the federal judiciary has no authority to hold court in Virginia and that lawyers are part of that corrupt system. When Kiser originally appointed Damico a few months ago, Stump tried to order him out of the courtroom.
Damico told the jury during his closing argument that the defense Stump mounted showed entrapment by the government's informant, Raeford Nelson Thompson, who was working for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
In what could be a positive sign for Stump, the jury came back half an hour into deliberations to ask the judge again to read the instructions on what constitutes entrapment. A person who has shown no previous intent, but is induced or persuaded by a government agent to commit a crime, has been entrapped, Kiser told them. If the person has shown willingness and the agent simply provides an opportunity to commit the crime, it is not entrapment.
ATF agent Scott Fairburn testified that Stump did not become a target of the investigation until he was recorded on tape discussing illegal activity. Stump is heard on a tape secretly recorded by Thompson saying he knew about Mullins' making silencers and that there is "a question of legality."
Thompson first went to a state trooper in fall 1993 when his friend James Roy Mullins told him he was making illegal silencers. Thompson began working undercover and helped Mullins start the Blue Ridge Hunt Club, the Pulaski militia whose core members were all indicted on gun charges.
While working as an informant, Thompson encouraged local gun-rights activist Stump to meet Mullins and suggested that Mullins make Stump an officer in the club. Thompson also told one member how to make fertilizer bombs, the member testified, and encouraged everyone at one meeting to take a turn firing a rifle with an illegal silencer attached.
Stump's charges center on that meeting: possession of silencers that were unregistered and that had no serial numbers, and conspiracy to violate federal firearms laws.
Mullins did not talk about mounting an armed insurrection or breaking into the National Guard Armory to steal weapons until Thompson began encouraging him, Damico said. "It was only when Thompson began taking an active role that any of this developed."
The government, he argued, has "made it sound scary, brought in every scary weapon they could find. ... The issue is, what did [Stump] do?"
Stump admitted during his testimony - a nearly hour-long monologue - that he had handled Mullins' silencers and that he may have fired one silenced rifle. He also admitted knowing that Mullins was making the silencers without registering them and paying the required tax.
"I knew Mr. Mullins hadn't paid the tax and I didn't report him," he testified. "But it never occurred to me by holding it, I could be charged."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Wolthuis did not cross-examine Stump; he got what he had wanted from Stump's testimony.
In his closing argument, Wolthuis said: "This case is much simpler at this point than I thought it would be. ... You heard from Mr. Stump. He has told you everything the government set out to prove."
Thompson "did a courageous and honest thing [by serving as an informant]," Wolthuis said. "That must be remembered."
by CNB