March 1, 2002, Montana. Four Billings, Montana, skinheads receive lengthy prison sentences for their role in chasing minorities out of a local park in July 2000. The four men, members of the Montana Front Working Class Skinheads, include Jason Potter, sentenced to 15 years, Sean Allen and Eric Dixon, each sentenced to 10 years, and Jeremiah Skidmore, sentenced to eight years and four months. Two other people involved in the incident, Ryan Flaherty and Michael Flom, will be allowed to serve their sentences (41 months and 51 months respectively) at a boot camp rather than prison.

March 6, 2002, Texas. Retired American Airlines pilot Don Schutt is arrested in Dallas, Texas, by federal authorities. The tax protester is charged with willful failure to file income tax returns.

March 7, 2002, Indiana. In Elkhart, Indiana, Alex Witmer, who pleaded guilty earlier to helping to kill a black teenager in 1999 because of the victim's race, receives an 85 year sentence for his role in the crime (and another, unrelated, crime). Prosecutors had agreed not to seek the death penalty. Witmer was driving a vehicle while the passenger, Jason Powell, used Witmer's rifle to fire 12 shots at the victim, who died three days later. Witmer said he wanted people to think he was a member of the Aryan Brotherhood; he and Powell had been driving around looking for an African-American to shoot so that Powell could get a white supremacist tattoo. Powell, who also pleaded guilty, faces a possible term of life without parole when he is sentenced.

March 7, 2002, California. A judge unseals a federal grand jury indictment against Matthew Rieder, a Palo Alto electrician already in jail, for robbing four Palo Alto area banks of almost $50,0000. Rieder was arrested last year in a parking lot, along with another electrician named Aaron Richardson; police searching Rieder's truck found pipe bomb materials, four explosive devices made out of soda bottles, manuals on how to dispose of dead bodies, and a "White Power" t-shirt. Later, searching a locker Rieder had rented, investigators discovered a large Nazi flag, tracts about Adolf Hitler, and a newsletter from a racist prison organization.

March 11, 2002, California. Three teenagers in Huntington Beach, California, are charged with beating the Filipino manager of a local store with metal pipes. The three boys-whose names are not released because they are minors-used racial slurs and made a Nazi-style salute before beating him, according to the victim. One of the teenagers had a shaved head and a swastika displayed on his chest. The teens were arrested and booked on suspicion of felony assault with a deadly weapon, criminal threats, and a hate crime.

March 12, 2002, Washington. Tax protester and chiropractor Biffer A. Wellendorf of Wenatchee, Washington, is arrested in a Spokane federal courtroom and taken to jail for civil contempt of court. Wellendorf was found in contempt because he repeatedly refused to comply with an IRS summons to turn over his business records for an audit. According to the judge, Wellendorf can get out of jail anytime he agrees to comply. IRS agents began seeking Wellendorf's records two years ago after uncovering evidence suggesting he had not paid income taxes for the years 1993-1999. He has not yet been charged with any crimes, but the IRS audit could lead to such charges. Wellendorf claims that he is a sovereign citizen and has no legal obligation to turn anything over to the IRS. He will spend months in jail as he refuses to comply.

March 14, 2002, Arizona. Longtime tax protester Wayne Bentson of Payson, Arizona, is arrested by federal authorities and arraigned in Tuscon on charges of two counts of failure to file federal tax returns and one count of conspiracy to impede the administration of the internal revenue laws. In past years, Bentson has traveled around the country holding seminars teaching people his process that he claimed would allow them to avoid paying income taxes. He and his wife have repeatedly lost tax cases in court and his own son was also convicted on tax charges in 1991.

March 14, 2002, Kentucky. Charlie Puckett, head of the Kentucky State Militia, slips an ankle monitor and becomes a fugitive rather than face prosecution on federal weapons charges and obstruction of justice. Puckett, a convicted felon who was found to be in the possession of a large amount of weapons and ammunition, said in message sent by e-mail to followers that he "must leave society at this time for [his] own safety." The ATF offers a $5,000 reward for information leading to Puckett's arrest. Eventually, Puckett will turn himself in to the authorities.

March 14, 2002, Indiana. In Goshen, Indiana, Jason Powell receives a sentence of life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to fatally shooting a black man in November 1999 in Elkhart, Indiana. Powell, who fired 12 shots at the man in a drive-by shooting, reportedly hoped the murder would gain him admittance into the Aryan Brotherhood. Alex Witmer, who drove the car and owned the gun that Powell fired, pleaded guilty earlier, receiving an 85-year prison term.

March 18, 2002, Illinois. One man and two juveniles are charged with arson and criminal damage to property under a hate crime statute in connection with the burning of two vehicles and a garage that belong to a black church in Joliet. The man, Mark Austin, and the two boys are alleged to be white supremacists. The garage was burned on January 23, 2002, and painted with a swastika and a racial epithet; in early March, a bus and van belonging to the church were burned, and racist graffiti was again painted. Police zeroed in on the suspects after being called to Austin's home for an unrelated call, where they discovered Nazi and white supremacist graffiti and posters on the walls. Austin's home is only a few blocks from the church.

March 18, 2002, California. Travis Miskam and Jesse Douglas receive 20 and 14 years, respectively, for a 1999 attack on a black man at a party near Temecula, California. Miskam and Douglas, white supremacist skinheads (Douglas's lawyer characterized him as a "hanger-on" to the Western Hammerskins), hit the victim on the head with a beer bottle and slashed him in the back. They were convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, as well as hate crime and gang allegations, although acquitted of attempted murder. Other defendants, who had pleaded guilty, received sentences earlier that ranged from four to 10 years.

March 21, 2002, California. A Los Angeles jury finds Robert Noel and Marjorie Knoller guilty of involuntary manslaughter and second-degree murder, respectively, in connection with a fatal dog attack on a neighbor of the San Francisco husband and wife couple. Both are found guilty of keeping a mischievous dog that killed a person, while Knoller is also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. The case, which attracted enormous publicity because of many bizarre aspects surrounding its details, involved a 120-pound presa canario dog owned by the two. During the trial, witnesses testified that Noel and Knoller, both lawyers, were "associates" of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang and worked with gang members to raise and train the dogs. Several months later, in a surprising turn of events, Knoller's second-degree murder conviction will be thrown out by a judge who said there was not sufficient evidence of intent to murder.

March 21, 2002, Colorado. A fugitive recovery agent apprehends Lawrence Michael Jiron in Villa Grove, Colorado. Authorities in southwest Colorado had been seeking Jiron since a bench warrant had been issued in February after the sovereign citizen activist had failed to appear for a court hearing before his scheduled trial on February 19 for filing bogus liens. A new trial date is set.

March 22, 2002, Indiana. Cloverdale resident Dallas Fultz is sentenced to 37 months in prison for his conviction on federal weapons charges. Fultz, a member of the 14th Regiment Indiana State Militia, was one of several militia members arrested in August 2001 as undercover police officers became suspicious that one of the leaders of the group was plotting to kill a member. Fultz pleaded guilty to selling a sawed-off shotgun and to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The leader of the group, Fred Keuthan, still awaits trial on state charges related to the murder plot.

March 22, 2002, Ohio. Tax protester Katina Kefalos of the Columbus suburb of Clintonville is sentenced to 27 months in prison for her conviction for evading nearly $13,000 worth of federal income taxes. Normal sentencing guidelines call for a 24-month sentence, but U.S. District Court Judge Algernon Marbley gives her three extra months in prison because of her behavior and conduct during the trial. Kefalos fired five court-appointed attorneys because none of them would defend her based on her sovereign citizen beliefs rather than under the real laws; she also filed a bogus lien against one of her attorneys.

March 22, 2002, Maine. Tax protester Shirley Elaine Adamson of Oakland, Maine, receives a two year prison sentence (all but 30 days suspended) and give three years probation for violating Maine income tax laws. Adamson, a nurse, was convicted on five counts of income tax evasion and five counts of failing to file tax returns for the years 1995 through 1999. Representing herself, Adamson rejected the authority of the state to tax her. Speaking on her behalf during her sentencing, tax protester Ronald Boone argues that Adamson was denied a jury of her peers because all the jurors were taxpayers.

March 23, 2002, Washington. Grant County sheriff's deputies arrest Leonard Knigge of Moses Lake, Washington, following the execution of a search warrant in connection with a March 3 incident in which a burning cross was thrown onto the lawn of a multiracial family. Knigge confesses to having burned the cross and faces charges of malicious harassment and possibly federal hate crime charges.

March 24, 2002, New Hampshire. Aaron Powell of Lunenburg, New Hampshire, is arrested after being released from the hospital for treatment of dog bites and charged with being a fugitive from justice based on an earlier warrant for trespass. The arrest follows a standoff of several years duration after a local bank foreclosed on Powell's property because he had refused to pay property taxes, which the bank had been paying instead. Police officers say that they considered Powell a threat because he had been communicating with extremist groups like the Montana Freeman and because he greatly admired Carl Drega, the New Hampshire anti-government extremist who murdered two police officers, a judge, and a newspaper editor before being killed by law enforcement officers in 1997.