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Posted: February 11, 2004
On February 10, 2004, a man with ties to anti-government and white supremacist groups was sentenced to fifteen months in prison for weapons violations by the U.S. District Court in Tacoma, Washington.
Last summer, James D. Brailey, 44, pleaded guilty to illegal possession of several guns, including a fully automatic submachine gun, an assault rifle, handguns and ammunition. Brailey, arrested in January 2003 after authorities searched his home and van and found the weapons, had reportedly just returned from a Christian Identity meeting in Arkansas; Christian Identity is a racist and anti-Semitic religious sect popular in extreme right-wing circles.
Federal and state law enforcement agencies began investigating Brailey in 2001 after an informant claimed Brailey was planning to assassinate Washington Governor Gary Locke. A second informant testified that Brailey talked about targeting Locke because of his Chinese ethnicity and that Brailey took "rehearsal" trips and made "dry runs" to evaluate security at the Capitol.
Despite the second informant's testimony, Judge Robert Bryan ruled that there was not enough evidence to prove that Brailey had plotted to assassinate Governor Locke. Had prosecutors been able to prove that he planned to use the weapons to threaten or kill the Governor, Brailey would have faced a longer prison sentence.
Brailey was a member of the Washington Jural Society, a "sovereign citizen" group, which elected Brailey as "governor" of the state of Washington in 1998.
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