Montana Freemen

The Montana Freemen were an anti-government Christian Patriot movement group based outside the town of Jordan, Montana. The members of the group referred to their land as "Justus Township" and had declared themselves no longer under the authority of any outside government. They became the center of public attention in 1996 when they engaged in a prolonged armed standoff with agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The Montana Freemen espoused belief in the doctrine of individual sovereignty and rejected the authority of the federal government of the United States.

Leader LeRoy M. Schweitzer and the Freemen used inter alia Anderson on the Uniform Commercial Code and Bankers Handbook to draw notices of lien against public officials. The liens were then allegedly sold to generate equity to fund an effort to make a "firm offer to pay off the national debt." The Freemen claimed that the liens conformed to the Uniform Commercial Code, and that their township's court had an interest in a tort claim for damages incurred by the named public officials for violations of their oaths of office. They viewed support of the corporate credit system as an unconstitutional act which would incrementally "...[deprive] the people of their property until [their] posterity wakes up homeless...", a paraphrased quotation attributed to Thomas Jefferson.

The Freemen were known to produce their own very realistic counterfeit checks and money orders, sometimes ordering items and deliberately overpaying so they could demand refunds. The president of one bank reported that over an 18-month period his bank received two to five complaints a week about Freemen checks. In 1995 members wrote a fraudulent check to try to purchase 1.4 million dollars' worth of firearms, ammunition, and bulletproof vests.

In late 1994 foreclosure proceedings were initiated against the farm that contained Justus Township. The Freemen refused to be evicted from the land. They had also conducted their own mock trials of numerous public officials, and issued their own writ of execution against a federal judge. The FBI investigated the group and initiated a sting operation aimed at one of the Freemen's financial programs, which led to the arrest of two members of the group in March 1996. The FBI also had warrants for eight other persons suspected to be in the farm, but before they were able to arrest them an armed confrontation developed and the FBI withdrew to a safe distance to avoid violence. The similar 1993 standoff in Waco, Texas involving the Branch Davidians as well as the 1992 incident between the Weaver family and the FBI at Ruby Ridge, Idaho were still fresh in the public mind, and the FBI was extremely cautious and wanted to prevent a recurrence of those violent events. After 81 days of negotiations, the Freemen surrendered to authorities on June 14, 1996.

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