ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 27, 1996 TAG: 9602270115
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Below
A U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE says he will not sentence a Pulaski man to a mandatory two-year sentence for weapons violations.
From the start, the court case against Pulaski militia member Bill Stump has been anything but typical. Monday, a judge decided Stump's situation was so unusual that federal sentencing guidelines don't even address it.
At what was supposed to be Stump's sentencing, Chief U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser said he planned to give the machinist a lighter sentence than the mandatory guidelines require for his conviction on two weapons charges. Stump faces between two and three years in prison under the guidelines.
Stump was convicted of possessing an unregistered silencer and possessing a silencer without a serial number after he admitted handling and firing rifles that a friend had equipped with homemade silencers. The shooting took place at a 1994 weekend meeting of the Blue Ridge Hunt Club, a now-defunct Pulaski County citizens' militia.
"Although the evidence amply shows Stump to be guilty ... I don't believe the guidelines take into account such a bare-bones possession of these illegal weapons," Kiser read from a prepared statement. "Stump committed his crimes by using silenced weapons for a sporting purpose - i.e., target practice."
He said there was no evidence that Stump planned to use the silencers to commit other crimes, as the guidelines presume.
A federal judge may depart from the guidelines - which were drafted to ensure uniform sentencing across the country - but must justify his reasons for doing so.
Kiser gave the prosecutor seven days to respond to his ruling before he sentences Stump.
Typically, the defense attorney would make a motion for a lighter sentence, but Kiser acted on his own. Stump has represented himself rather than trust an attorney to take on the system for him.
"The court's in a difficult position because Mr. Stump's representing himself," Kiser said. "I'm supposed to be impartial ... but also to view the case and see - as near as humanly possible - see that justice is done."
Raeford Nelson Thompson, an informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, helped a friend start the militia and served as its vice president while he kept tabs on its activities for the government.
Kiser said he was "uncomfortable with the aggressive manner in which Thompson pursued the investigation."
The judge also said he suspected jury members at Stump's trial acquitted him on a lesser charge of conspiracy not because they doubted Thompson's veracity, but because of his methods.
"Thompson became a major player in organizing meetings and contacts among the alleged conspirators," and had even fired the silenced weapons himself before he was working for the ATF, Kiser noted.
Stump has characterized Thompson as an "agent provocateur" who, acting at the direction of the ATF, lured him into the Blue Ridge Hunt Club to discredit him politically. Stump has been active in Republican campaigns on the issue of gun rights.
Thompson encouraged other members to fire the silenced weapons as he wore a hidden recorder.
The ATF has defended Thompson as a good citizen who came forward out of fear that his friend's plans against the government were getting out of control. Stump was arrested nine months before the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City last April raised public awareness of militias.
Jim Silvey, resident agent in charge of the Roanoke ATF office, said after the hearing that no matter what sentence Stump gets, as a convicted felon he still loses the rights to vote and to own firearms.
Stump, meanwhile, attempted to serve another lawsuit on Kiser in court Monday, charging him with violating his oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. An earlier suit against the judge was dismissed. Kiser said he would be "glad to accept service outside the court," but not during the hearing.
Rather than limit his fight to the charges against him, Stump - who describes himself as a "constitutionalist" - has used his case to do battle with a federal government that he believes has illegally assumed powers that should be left to the states.
The delay in his sentencing will give Stump more time to work on his lawsuits, like the one he filed Monday in Pulaski County Circuit Court. It charges that 16 public officials - including President Clinton, Sens. John Warner and Charles Robb, and the Pulaski County sheriff - have violated their oath to uphold the Constitution. He also is suing Clinton in a separate suit for the "murders" of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Tex.
If he's sent to prison, he'll continue with the lawsuits, he said.
"I'll organize all the prisoners to file so many lawsuits they'll have to use forklifts to carry them around."
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: LAURA KLEINHENZ/Staff. Pulaski militiaman Bill Stump,by CNBfacing sentencing for gun charges, has filed a lawsuit against
President Clinton, claiming Clinton is responsible for the deaths of
Branch Davidians. color.