ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 2, 1995 TAG: 9512040027
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: ROANOKE
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
A Florida man charged in 1990 with assaulting a federal employee and building on federal land without a permit has started serving a 47-month federal prison sentence.
Clifford LaJames Brown, 34, was sentenced in U.S. District Court on Oct. 26. He turned himself in last summer, after he failed to show for sentencing in Roanoke and spent 3 1/2 years as a fugitive.
Brown's sentence also includes a conviction of possessing a firearm after being convicted of a felony. He was fined $5,000.
Brown's father, Clifford R. "Charlie" Brown, was sentenced in 1992 to three years probation and $10,000 in fines after pleading guilty to assault and building on federal land without a permit.
The charges stemmed from an October 1990 incident in Giles County involving four Army Corps of Engineers employees and a dispute over whether gate posts the Browns had installed were on the Browns' or federal property. The Browns had bought 2,000 acres at the Virginia-West Virginia border, with plans to develop an organic farm.
The government charged that when corps employees tried to take the posts down, the Browns drove up and ordered them to leave. The employees said they were threatened with a tear-gas grenade. They also spotted a shotgun in the truck.
A corps employee had testified that the younger Brown grabbed the throttle of a backhoe one of the employees was on and threatened the four employees.
Charlie Brown said he was adding gates on the advice of a lawyer, who said he could be held liable for accidents on the road that he and the corps shared. He said he had guns in the truck - in plain view - because he thought someone had been tampering with his equipment.
LENGTH: Short : 40 linesby CNB