Georgia birther and Oathkeeper Darren Huff was convicted Tuesday of attempting to take over a Tennessee courthouse and conduct citizen’s arrests on officials.
After a week-long trial, a jury convicted Huff of knowingly carrying a firearm in interstate commerce with the intent to use it in a civil disorder, but acquitted him of using a firearm in relation to another felony, CBS News reports.
The decision came after the jury announced last night that it was hung.
Huff will be sentenced in February. He faces up to five years in prison.
The case dates back to April 2010 when Huff, carrying a Colt .45 and an AK-47, went to Tennessee to conduct citizens’ arrests on officials. Huff, a member of the Oath Keepers, said he going to support Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, a leader of the birther and Patriot group American Grand Jury, who was arrested for trying to perform a citizen’s arrest on a Grand Jury foreman. Fitzpatrick was angry that court officials didn’t let him pursue a Grand Jury trial against “illegal alien, infiltrator and impostor” President Obama, and other “domestic enemies.”
In his trial last week, Huff teared up on the stand when he said: “my government has called me a potential domestic terrorist.”
“It’s hard to get employment when you’re under federal indictment,” Huff also said. “I refuse to be intimidated. All I can do is still have a voice.”
Jillian Rayfield
Jillian Rayfield is a Reporter/Blogger for TPM, and started as a News Intern in May 2009. She graduated from Cornell University in May 2008 with a degree in Film, and worked as a Research Assistant for a market research firm in London in between.
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