Freemen Fast For Freedom

When it comes to putting the Freemen on trial, very little goes smoothly.

Russell Dean Landers, one of the anti-government Freemen who has been fasting and boycotting his trial, was hospitalized with dehydration for a few hours Tuesday. U.S. District Judge John Coughenour said two other defendants may be fasting.

Meanwhile, federal marshals took California Freeman John McGuire into custody on suspicion of inciting militia members to come to Billings to intercede in the trial of a dozen Freemen, most of whom refuse to attend court sessions.

McGuire, who has been free on bond, was to appear for a hearing Wednesday.

U.S. Attorney Sherry Matteucci filed a motion late Tuesday seeking McGuire's detention, saying he violated conditions insisting he have no contact with defendants or witnesses.

"More importantly, we received information [Tuesday] showing that McGuire poses a grave danger to the community," she said.

Only three defendants, including McGuire, have been attending their trial on charges including conspiracy in a check scheme, threatening to kill a federal judge, bank fraud, and interstate transportation of stolen property.

Landers, 46, and eight others who have been jailed since their standoff with the FBI ended in 1996 have threatened violence if they are forcibly brought into the courtroom. They have been held in a video-equipped room at the jail during court sessions.

Coughenour has asked Freeman Edwin Clark to talk to the defendants at the jail and ask whether objections to the TV room were the cause of their fast. Clark, who was acquitted of all charges in a trial in April, agreed.

The Freemen, in keeping with their anti-government views, have disrupted court hearings and trials since the standoff two years ago.

In March, four Freemen were ejected from a courtroom as they cursed the judge and a prosecutor on the first day of their criminal trial. And last month, defendant Cornelius John "Casey" Veldhuizen, 59, was hospitalized with what was described as high blood pressure, delaying the trial.

About two dozen Freemen held hundreds of FBI agents at bay for 81 days around their rural stronghold in eastern Montana in 1996. The standoff ended without a shot being fired when the last 16 surrendered.