.id AA06471; Mon, 28 Aug 95 11:12:06 CDT
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 1995 11:12:01 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 5 Num. 92



              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 5  Num. 92
             ======================================
                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")


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FBI LINE ABOUT RANDY WEAVER DOESN'T RING TRUE
By Thomas Shapley
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
[qtd. in *Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette*, 08/27/95]
[The following is an abbreviated version]

>From the moment the story broke of the siege on Ruby Ridge, the 
media played back, note for note, the official government score 
of what had taken place. The official line was that Randy Weaver, 
a neo-Nazi white supremacist and his fanatical family, with the 
aid of a fervent follower, had ambushed and gunned down a U.S. 
marshal trying to serve a warrant for Weaver's failing to appear 
on federal weapons charges. The hapless marshals had been pinned 
down by subsequent waves of gunfire from the remote mountaintop 
compound, a fortress whose grounds were riddled with booby traps, 
those holed up inside trained and ready to use an arsenal of 
weapons, including rockets, in a long-hoped for deadly 
confrontation with the demonic federal government loathed by 
these militant extremists.

But time and trial slowly exposed a different story. The 
testimony and evidence presented at the trial of [Kevin Harris, a 
friend of the Weaver family] and Weaver and that contained in the 
still unreleased internal review by the Justice Department as 
well as interviews with Jackie Brown, her husband, Tony, and 
others close to the incident weave together sufficiently well to 
offer a far more plausible chain of events.

In the summer of 1989, while attending an Aryan Nations World 
Congress in Hayden Lake, Idaho, Weaver was introduced to Kenneth 
Fadeley, who, by the fall of that year, was talking with him 
about buying weapons, specifically sawed-off shotguns.

Fadeley was a paid informant for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, 
Tobacco and Firearms. ATF officials believed that Weaver might be 
a conduit to Chuck Holworth, who had formed an Aryan Nations 
splinter group in Montana. He was not.

In October 1989, Weaver sold the informant two shotguns, the 
barrels of which he had shortened in accordance with specific 
instructions provided by Fadeley (who didn't tell his ATF 
handler that he had provided such instructions). Fadeley recorded 
all his conversations with Weaver -- with one glaring exception, 
the one in which Weaver allegedly made the offer to sell the 
weapons to the informant.

On May 21, 1990, the ATF asked the U.S. Attorney's Office in 
Boise to prosecute Weaver for selling the illegal shotgun. The 
very next month, two ATF agents approached Weaver outside a hotel 
in Sandpoint, Idaho, and told him about the charges and that he 
could help himself by agreeing to provide information about the 
Aryan Nations. Weaver refused, saying he wouldn't become a 
government "snitch." One agent gave Weaver his card and the 
agents left.

Incredibly, no one in the ATF told anyone in the U.S. Marshals 
Service that they had tried to solicit Weaver to work as an 
informant.

On Dec. 13, 1990, a full seven months after the ATF referred the 
case to the U.S. attorney's office, a federal grand jury indicted 
Weaver for manufacturing and possessing an unregistered firearm. 
On Jan. 17, 1991, he was arrested near his residence by ATF 
agents. Weaver was arraigned the next day. He posted a $10,000 
bond, secured by his property on Ruby Ridge, was released and 
told by the court that his trial was set for Feb. 19, 1991.

Several weeks later, the court changed the trial date to Feb. 20. 
Two days later, a U.S. probation officer sent Weaver a letter in 
which he erroneously referred to the trial date as March 20. Yet 
when Weaver failed to appear for trial on Feb. 20, a bench 
warrant was issued for his arrest. On March 14, 1991, still 
nearly a week before the trial date given Weaver, a federal grand 
jury indicted him for failure to appear for trial.

This further inflamed the suspicion in Weaver's mind that the 
government was conspiring against him. He made it clear in talks 
with friends, in at least one newspaper interview and in letters 
to the U.S. attorney's office in Boise, signed by Vicki Weaver, 
that "whether we live or die, we will not obey your lawless 
government... we will not bow to your evil commandments."

Nonetheless, Weaver did, through intermediaries, negotiate with 
the U.S. Marshals Service. On Oct. 12, 1991, the local Marshals 
Service office in Boise proposed offering formal surrender terms 
to Weaver and requested authorization from the U.S. attorney's 
office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ron Howen refused to authorize 
further negotiations with Weaver and declared that all further 
communication with him must be through his court-appointed 
attorney, with whom Weaver had repeatedly refused to speak. Howen 
would later be the lead prosecutor at the trial of Weaver and 
Harris.

So the stage for disaster was set. Weaver, an increasingly 
paranoid, radical ideologue convinced that the federal government 
was evil {1}, was cut off from negotiations that could defuse the 
situation. Weaver, although he had not left his home, was 
officially a federal fugitive.

The case was transferred to the Enforcement Division of the U.S. 
Marshals Service. It was given the code name "Operation Northern 
Exposure" and put under the guidance of Deputy Marshal Arthur 
Roderick.

In August 1992, Roderick assembled the team that was supposed to 
conduct the necessary surveillance to set up an approved 
undercover plan to arrest Weaver away from his family. On the 
team was Deputy U.S. Marshal William Degan, commander of the 
Northeast Task Force in Boston, and a close friend of Roderick's.

The team met in Sandpoint, Idaho, on Aug. 17, 1992. Four days 
later, Degan would be dead.

About 10 a.m. Aug. 21, three of the six marshals on the team, 
including Roderick and Degan, crept close to the Weavers' cabin. 
None wore bullet-proof vests, although they were available.

Suddenly, the Weavers' dogs began to bark and Randy Weaver, 
Harris and several Weaver children ran out of the cabin. They 
were armed. The marshals retreated through the woods, pursued by 
the Weavers' dog Striker, Harris and Sammy Weaver.

The most likely scenario of what happened next is that one of the 
marshals (probably Roderick) shot Striker (the autopsy showed the 
dog was hit from behind). Sammy responded angrily and fired his 
.223 mini-14 rifle. His shots hit no one. He turned to run back 
to the cabin. One or more marshals, including perhaps Degan 
(whose gun was found to have been fired seven times), returned 
fire, hitting Sammy in the arm and the back, killing him. Harris 
then fired his 30-06 rifle and hit Degan in the chest with a 
single round, killing him.

Harris and Weaver returned to the cabin. At no point during the 
gun battle were any shots fired from the cabin. After the initial 
exchange of fire, no shots were fired from the cabin or any of 
its occupants throughout the ensuing seige.

Nonetheless, Jose Antonio Perez, chief of Enforcement Operations 
of the U.S. Marshals Service at headquarters, reported to the FBI 
that "the marshals were still on the mountain and were pinned 
down by gunfire" more than two hours after the firefight. (The 
marshalls involved in the shooting reported receiving 100 or more 
incoming rounds. But investigators recovered far fewer bullet 
casings.)

                   [...to be continued...]

---------------------------<< Notes >>---------------------------
{1} "Weaver, an increasingly paranoid, radical ideologue 
convinced that the federal government was evil..."
       "paranoid" ---- "convinced that government was evil"
       "crazy" ---- "thinks that government is evil"
       "thinks that government is evil" -- "crazy"
TRANSLATION: "If you think the U.S. government is evil, you are 
'crazy'."

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