Schaeffer Cox trial underway in Alaska

[notorial dissent]

Schaeffer has always struck me as the type, that with little or no prompting, could/would probably do most of the prosecution's work for them in proving their case. I can't imagine his defense team is willingly letting him do a lot of what he is doing, but as Wes and the Judge have often point out, it is sometimes very hard to prevent your client from helping the other side, and I think this may well be one of those. He strikes me as being far too pleased with himself, and he obviously thinks he is very clever, and those can be fatal for someone in his position. He likes much too much the sound of his own voice, as my grandmother would say. I don't know about his buddies, but they don't strike me as overly bright either, and I wonder how much or little they'll say when their turns come. The one just looks like he can hardly restrain himself as it is.

[ArthurWankspittle]

I have to agree with what has been said in the preceding posts. The one report I've seen so far indicates the prosecution is having to regularly object to Cox's answers as he keeps rambling off into political speeches. The point about the FBI hit squad was raised and it appears Cox suddenly became rather vague about the information and it was said it may have come from Tim Turner.

Cox said he never actually met Turner, but did talk to him on the phone a couple times and "may have been aware" that Turner had a similar story.

So we appear to have gone from a 6 man FBI hit squad flying in from Colorado to "a similar story" to one of Tim Turner, the well known constitutionalist and paragon of accuracy. You'd have thought if there was a hit squad after you, you might remember some details about it?
As for the other two "not being the sharpest knives in the draw" I agree completely. I have been keeping notes on this trial and early on wrote that the collective IQ of the defendants only made it to triple figures because of the presence of Cox. Whether that will help them at the end of the day in terms of a verdict, I doubt it, though it would help in mitigation.
I think there is still time for Cox to "open his mouth and put his foot in it" but it may depend on whether the prosecution's questioning causes him to lose his cool. I also believe at lot of this whole thing is down to Cox being involved in the domestic assault incident with his wife and the subsequent involvement of the authorities. Cox strikes me as the sort of guy who thinks he's perfect, has the right to beat his wife and has the potential to "go postal" when the authorities question that right and want to check on his child.

[notorial dissent]

Arthur, pretty much my take on it so far. I think you are maybe being a bit generous on the IQ part, but then I pretty much had the other two in the negative column to start with, and nothing I have seen so far disabuses me of that opinion. I agree in that I think Cox thinks he can do no wrong, and that the authorities were interfering with his ghod given rights to smack his woman around, I can't really say why, but he really strikes me as the type for that, and it isn't a very far leap from that to a lot of the other stuff he has been delving in to. I rather suspect that Schaeffer will get real vague when they start calling him on some of his fantasies, as I think he has made a lot of this up in his own widdle head.

[ashlynne39]

Uhm, Tim Turner is the President so if he said there was some sort of hit squad after Cox then there must have been. I ask you . . . when in the last few years has Turner been wrong about anything? Anything at all? Bet you can't name even one thing he's been wrong about.

[ArthurWankspittle]

Coleman Barney has been on the stand most recently, and, apart from a few issues like his Sovereign Citizenship, is coming across as the devout Christian, family man, trying to run a business and bring up his kids right. In my opinion he may well have done enough to distance himself from Cox's ideas and plans that a jury would doubt he had sufficient conviction in the involvement in a plan to killed federal officials. In a sentence: he's a lot more normal than Cox. I can see him getting convicted on the technical possession type charges but spending little future time in jail as the defendants have all been denied bail and have been held for months already.

[ArthurWankspittle]

Please tell me that the long comment by Reader88 is fake.
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/s ... -justified
Otherwise I really wouldn't want to be involved with law enforcement in Alaska.

[Demosthenes]

Reader88 is probably real.

Testimony when Cox took the stand this week:

Out of the blue, an airport police officer pulled him over, not to make a traffic stop but to hand Cox a manila envelope containing Cox's domestic-terrorist profile. The officer never acknowledged what he'd handed to Cox, saying only, "Hang in there, buddy. There's a lot of us pulling for you."

[ArthurWankspittle]

Reader88 is probably real.

Testimony when Cox took the stand this week:

Out of the blue, an airport police officer pulled him over, not to make a traffic stop but to hand Cox a manila envelope containing Cox's domestic-terrorist profile. The officer never acknowledged what he'd handed to Cox, saying only, "Hang in there, buddy. There's a lot of us pulling for you."

So apart from not knowing the law, not enforcing the law, overlooking that Cox and co are on the third set of indictments from a Grand Jury, not noticing that 14 out of 16 indictments (if I've got the correct filing) are weapons charges, and believing that because Cox and co hadn't got round to killing any federal officers then no offences were committed, he's a fine example of Law Enforcement?
I presume the feds aren't too happy about that envelope passing, and maybe someone will have some questions to answer. Equally, I can't remember if this envelope was shown to exist, so we might just be having to take Cox's word for it.

[notorial dissent]

Saying the Feds "aren't too happy about that envelope passing" is a masterpiece of understatement. I really, truly, wouldn't want to be that officer, assuming he actually exists, and I'm very much afraid he probably does. When they get around to him, as the FBI, and who knows what other three letter agencies will, that are now looking very closely at anyone who could possibly have had the access and the ability to pass that information to Cox. He will not be feeling quite so pleased with himself, and a happy time will not be had by all once their attention comes to bear. I do not predict a happy time for those even peripherally involved once the hammer starts to come done, as the Feds generally take a really dim view of that sort of thing.

[Demosthenes]

It's Alaska. I would bet that quite a few law enforcement types are sympathetic to Cox's battles against the big bad gov.

[notorial dissent]

Ya think!!!!

[ArthurWankspittle]

It's Alaska. I would bet that quite a few law enforcement types are sympathetic to Cox's battles against the big bad gov.

I'm not surprised by that, after all, Alaska is where Norm Olson went because he was too nutty for Montana. But there's sympathy, ignorance and blatant refusal to follow the law going on here. This LE person is doing the equivalent of not giving speeding tickets because he likes fast cars.

Back to Cox himself. He allegedly has a mix of paranoia and poor reading comprehension:

For months, Cox believed a six-man team from Aurora, Colo., had been sent to Alaska to kill him. According to Cox, he now knows he was wrong about it. He'd misinterpreted short hand notes on the supposed domestic terrorist file. A "Squad 6" in the paperwork wasn't a six-person hit team, but a reference to "squad #6" -- a unit within the FBI. The report had been generated in Aurora, but Cox was convinced that was the hometown of the imaginary agents he thought had been dispatched to deal with him.

From here: http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.co.u ... -just.html

Good job it's the FBI because if it was the IRS, a 1040 man hit squad would be less believable.

[ArthurWankspittle]

Saying the Feds "aren't too happy about that envelope passing" is a masterpiece of understatement. I really, truly, wouldn't want to be that officer, assuming he actually exists, and I'm very much afraid he probably does. When they get around to him, as the FBI, and who knows what other three letter agencies will, that are now looking very closely at anyone who could possibly have had the access and the ability to pass that information to Cox. He will not be feeling quite so pleased with himself, and a happy time will not be had by all once their attention comes to bear. I do not predict a happy time for those even peripherally involved once the hammer starts to come done, as the Feds generally take a really dim view of that sort of thing.

Been thinking about this and conclude that whoever it was better "lawyer up" because the three letter agencies will be after him once this trial is finished. I wonder whether the potential charges may vary depending on the outcome of this trial.

[notorial dissent]

Arthur, couldn't agree with you more, although I suspect that it is much too late for that, and truthfully, I really doubt someone dumb enough to have done what this putz did is smart enough to have a) kept his mouth shut, or b) not have left a trail a bloodhound with a stopped up nose couldn't follow. I also suspect that they are not only already looking for him and any "friends" who might be involved, but probably have a pretty good idea who they are. After all, they are done investigating Cox, so they have all this free time, and lots of aggravation to take out on someone. I would suspect that either way the trial turns out it isn't going to be a happy time for the parties involved, I just suspect it will be an even less happy time if the trial doesn't go well, although I think they have probably done Cox more harm than good with their "help". I think a further career in law enforcement is the least of the things they will have to worry about at that point.

[ArthurWankspittle]

I think I'm more thinking of this: the charge may be the same for passing information to Cox but it looks a lot worse if Cox is convicted of threatening federal officers than if he, for instance, is only convicted of some weapons charges. Or can the person be charged with a "greater" crime if you tie it to the first option compared to the second? e.g. "aiding and abetting"

[Burnaby49]

Or, as an alternative, Cox could be lying about the airport-cop incident. The ideal lie since there is no way to call him on it yet it has significant implication if believed.

[ArthurWankspittle]

Or, as an alternative, Cox could be lying about the airport-cop incident. The ideal lie since there is no way to call him on it yet it has significant implication if believed.

Difficult to call him on it, I agree. It raises the question that if the file does exist why hasn't it been found, because if it does exist it is likely to be with some other "fun" stuff owned by Cox. Also, given that the flight Cox took is a known quantity then working out who was on duty at that time must narrow it down to a handful of people. If it doesn't exist then why not work on that basis? Cox is lying. Like his 3500 militia claim. If it does exist, then leave it to him to prove it.

[rogfulton]

Or, as an alternative, Cox could be lying about the airport-cop incident. The ideal lie since there is no way to call him on it yet it has significant implication if believed.

And you know there will be believers.

[Burzmali]

Or, as an alternative, Cox could be lying about the airport-cop incident. The ideal lie since there is no way to call him on it yet it has significant implication if believed.

Difficult to call him on it, I agree. It raises the question that if the file does exist why hasn't it been found, because if it does exist it is likely to be with some other "fun" stuff owned by Cox. Also, given that the flight Cox took is a known quantity then working out who was on duty at that time must narrow it down to a handful of people. If it doesn't exist then why not work on that basis? Cox is lying. Like his 3500 militia claim. If it does exist, then leave it to him to prove it.

The problem is that it does narrow down the list. If he were lying, why not choose a time and place where it would be much harder to disprove, e.g. "I was approached by an off-duty officer while at Wal-mart"

[notorial dissent]

We know from past experience that Cox very much likes the sound of his own voice, and has shall we say, a slight exaggeration problem, so some of this could well be possible, and it could all well be related to his 3500 man militia, but it does sound like he got something from someone, even if he got the details wrong and sort of stretched the truth even more than usual. Will be interesting to see what turns up over it.