Leader of U.S. border militia group pleads guilty to weapons charge
Source: Reuters
JANUARY 2, 2020 / 3:59 PM / UPDATED 11 HOURS AGO
Leader of U.S. border militia group pleads guilty to weapons charge
Dan Whitcomb, Julio-Cesar Chavez
3 MIN READ
(Reuters) - The leader of a small right-wing militia accused of illegally detaining immigrants as they crossed the U.S. border with Mexico pleaded guilty on Thursday to federal weapons charges, prosecutors and a defense lawyer said.
Larry Hopkins, 70, agreed to plead guilty to an indictment charging him with being a felon in possession of a firearm because he “felt like he had made his point” to the U.S. government, his attorney, Kelly O’Connell, told Reuters in an interview.
. . .
Hopkins, who has four previous felony convictions, faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison, $250,000 in fines and penalties and three years of supervised release. He is scheduled to be sentenced in the coming months.
Prosecutors say Hopkins is a leader of the United Constitutional Patriots, a group the American Civil Liberties Union and other critics have accused illegally detained migrants by impersonating law enforcement.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-militia/leader-of-u-s-border-militia-group-pleads-guilty-to-weapons-charge-idUSKBN1Z11IH?rpc=401&
Larry Hopkins, leader of ‘fascist militia’ at US border, boasted of plans to assassinate Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and George Soros, FBI agent says
Armed group United Constitutional Patriots claims to have helped US officials detain 5,600 migrants over past two months
Critics have accused UCP of illegally detaining and kidnapping migrants by impersonating law enforcement
Reuters
Published: 3:41am, 23 Apr, 2019
The leader of an armed group stopping undocumented migrants who cross into the United States from Mexico boasted that his members had trained to assassinate former US President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, an FBI agent said in court papers on Monday.
Larry Hopkins was arrested on Saturday on a weapons charge. His camouflage-wearing armed United Constitutional Patriots (UCP) members claim to have helped US officials detain about 5,600 migrants in New Mexico in the last 60 days.
. . .
Critics including the American Civil Liberties Union accuse the UCP of being a “fascist militia” whose members illegally detain and kidnap migrants by impersonating law enforcement. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, a Democrat, on Friday ordered an investigation of the group. She said “menacing or threatening migrant families and asylum-seekers is absolutely unacceptable and must cease”.
The FBI in court papers said that while it was investigating allegations of “militia extremist activity” in 2017, witnesses accused Hopkins of saying the UCP was planning to assassinate Obama, Clinton and the financier George Soros.
More:
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3007225/larry-hopkins-leader-facist-militia-us-border
= new reply since forum marked as read
for a red don pardon!
Seriously, WTF. People like this fukwit who get a rise out of baiting the US government reinforce the idea that armed resistance to the gov't is A-OK if you're white and a deluded wanna-be "patriot."
