Klan Group Charged In North Carolina Gun-Trading Scheme
MANDY LOCKE
The News & Observer



Federal prosecutors have charged seven Ku Klux Klan members with running an illegal gun-trading ring to finance a plan to blow up the Johnston County courthouse, according to Johnston County Sheriff Steve Bizzell and federal indictments.

Indictments unsealed Monday said the ring's heyday dates to the winter of 2001 and 2002, when several Klansmen bartered and sold dozens of stolen firearms. Investigators say they took illegal trade beyond state lines.

"This is going to be a detrimental blow to the KKK," said Bizzell, who said he received a death threat in 2002 from the Benson-based Klan splinter group. "Any time this many members are arrested and part of a criminal enterprise that is meeting and planning to carry out the blowing up of a courthouse and the killing of elected officials, this is serious business."

Federal prosecutors indicted Daniel Leigh Barefoot, 22; Sharon Renee Barefoot, 40; Jonathan Ashley Avery, 26; Jonathan Maynard, 22; Marvin Glen Gautier, 53; Michael Anthony Brewer, 35; and Rossie Lynwood Strickland, 57, for conspiring to possess and sell stolen firearms. Bizzell said all of those charged were affiliated with the Klan splinter group in southern Johnston County.

Several guns were stolen from a gun collector's home in Benson in 2001, Johnston Sheriff's Capt. Buck Pipkin said. According to the indictment, those charged moved the guns between their homes and barns and cleaned the guns to remove fingerprints. Customers stashed cash payments in Brewer's mailbox, the indictment said.

This is the latest set of charges stemming from an investigation begun four years ago after the group tried to march in a parade at Mule Days in Benson. Bizzell said he expects additional charges soon.

Charles Robert "Junior" Barefoot, former grand dragon of the North Carolina chapter of The National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, split off in 2001 and formed the Nation's Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

Charles Barefoot, along with three others charged Monday, is behind bars awaiting trial in the 2003 slaying of Lawrence Arthur Pettit of Jacksonville, allegedly another Klan member whose decomposed body was found in a Sampson County field.

Federal prosecutors charged Charles Barefoot again last summer with possessing a pink gellike explosive in the freezer of his Benson home in 2002.

Investigators wouldn't say why the charges Monday were brought so long after 2002, when dozens of weapons were seized from Barefoot's Benson home. The sheriff alleged then that Barefoot may have been plotting to blow up several county offices.

In an unrelated case about the same time, Charles Barefoot was accused of assaulting his wife, Sharon Renee Barefoot, with a deadly weapon. Daniel L. Barefoot is Charles Barefoot's son.

Bizzell said the current investigation "was much more involved than we initially realized."

What were their screen names on Assaualtweb?

whatever

Another group of assholes gets busted. Good.

The complete pretense of needing to 'sell illegal arms' in order for seven grown men to come up with enough cash to blow something up is ludicrous. I gotta call:


Not a fan of the klan!

Quoted: The complete pretense of needing to 'sell illegal arms' in order for seven grown men to come up with enough cash to blow something up is ludicrous. I gotta call:

Thats how McVeigh, nicoles and fortier funded the oklahoma city bombing.

Fuckem'.