Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

FREEMEN • 203rejecting the monetary system as fraudulent, since it was no longerbased on the gold standard, the Freemen rationalized their refusals torepay loans or to pay taxes. In a bizarre twist, the Freemen rationalizedthat as sovereign citizens, not only could they convene their owncommon-law courts to threaten officials, but they were equally entitledto issue their own paper monetary documents to pay for trucksand farm equipment and the like.Although a federal grand jury had indicted Freemen leaders LeRoySchweitzer and Daniel E. Petersen Jr., along with 10 other Freemen,for fraudulent checks and money orders on 19 May 1995, authoritiesdid not move to arrest them immediately for fear that the armed Freemenwould fight back and create another Ruby Ridge–style confrontationwith likely loss of life and probable public backlash againstfederal officials. Following these indictments, about 21 Freemen ofMontana assembled themselves in a 960-acre wheat farm and sheepranch outside Jordan, Montana, which had been sold due to foreclosurebut which they occupied and then declared to be “Justus Township,”a sovereign jurisdiction independent from the United States.When Schweitzer and Petersen left the ranch on 25 March 1996,they were arrested by the FBI; the remaining Freemen stayed in theranch where they were surrounded by FBI teams. The “soft siege”of this compound, lasting 81 days, involved 640 FBI agents and costabout $7.5 million. On 13 June, after several women and children hadleft the compound over the course of the siege, the last 16 Freemensurrendered to officials.Schweitzer and Petersen had given seminars to over 800 people,for $100 a head, on how to manufacture fraudulent financial instruments.Schweitzer and Petersen had learned the Freemen doctrineand check-kiting techniques from Roy Schwasinger of Fort Collins,Colorado, leader of the “We the People” group, which popularizedthe Freemen and the “common-law courts” movements. Using whatsome Montana officials have called paper terrorism, the Freemenwould harass law enforcement and tax officials by filing phony liensagainst their properties and those of their relatives, which often affectedtheir credit ratings.On 8 July 1998 a federal grand jury issued indictments against nineof the Freemen for banking fraud conspiracy. By March 1996 theFreemen had tried to pass 3,432 bogus checks with a total face valueof $15.5 billion; most were rejected, but up to $1.8 million worth had