Co-Defendant in Alaska Militia Case Gets Five-Year Sentence
Co-Defendant in Alaska Militia Case Gets Five-Year Sentence
As he sits in jail awaiting sentencing in November, Alaska Peacemaker Militia leader Francis Schaeffer Cox may now be a bit more worried about his fate.
A co-defendant, Coleman Barney - found by an Alaska federal jury to be the least culpable in a murder-conspiracy plot hatched by Schaeffer and members of his militia - was sentenced Monday to five years in prison.
“You got into really bad stuff here,” visiting U.S. District Judge Robert Bryan told the 38-year-old Barney, the Anchorage Daily News reported in today’s editions.
Barney, of the North Pole, was a “major” in Cox’s militia, which plotted to kill a judge and law enforcement officers - only to be caught in an FBI sting involving two informants. Barney was convicted of only one count - possession of an unregistered destructive device.
Cox, 28, of Fairbanks, and Lonnie Vernon, 56, of Salcha, Alaska, were convicted of conspiracy to murder and are scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 19 in Anchorage.
Cox, who faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, also was convicted of conspiracy to possess illegal weapons, two counts of possessing unregistered destructive devices, possession of an unregistered machine gun, illegal possession of a machine gun, illegally making a silencer and illegal possession of a silencer.