Guilty Plea in FBI Infiltrator’s Case Against Ann Arbor Militia

Admits to Weapons Charge, But Hutaree Members Still Face Sedition Case

Some 20 months after federal agents arrested nine members of an Ann Arbor, Michigan-area militia on what they called charges of planning to use “weapons of mass destruction” against police nationwide, the case has been floundering, with prosecutors dismissing a number of the more serious charges.

Today, however, prosecutors say that one of the nine detainees, Joshua John Clough, has plead guilty to a weapons charge, and will face five years in prison over it. The group was accused of having “unregistered short-barrel shotguns” among other weapons.

The group mostly hung around and discussed their pet conspiracy theories with one another, including the idea that the Matrix Trilogy was based on a true story. The group had a tenth member, however, who was an FBI infiltrator whose sole purpose was to report all these conspiracy and report back. It was this infiltrator who reported that they claimed to kill police en masse, even though there is no indication that the group ever made any move to do anything of the sort, and it appeared to just be more idle talk.

The other eight Hutaree members who haven’t already plea bargained and weren’t on the FBI payroll at the time will be facing charges of “seditious conspiracy” in a trial expected to start in February of next year, almost two years after the initial arrest.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.