This is
the first in a series of articles featuring Schaeffer Cox
UPDATE 5/11/17
By Ron Lee
Investigative Journalist
Fairbanks, AK – On January 8, 2012, US District Judge Robert Bryan sentenced
27-year-old Francis “Schaeffer” Cox to almost 26 years in prison, in most part
for a conspiracy to commit murder charge the prosecution, led by Asstistant US
Attorney (AUSA) Steve Skrocki, deceitfully sold to a jury as being Cox’s plan.
Now, 4 years later, revelations are exposing the system as the conspirators,
having acted to frame the man who has sat confined in the Communications
Management Unit (CMU) of the Federal Prison in Marion, Illinois.* The real story
never made it to the people of Alaska and, more importantly, to the jury. No one
heard the truth of the government’s obsession with getting rid of Cox. They
never got to read the investigating special agent’s emails saying Cox was not a
threat, and that he had no real “intention.” The witness intimidation; the
countless hours of audio recordings of Cox refusing to use violence; all were
things the government skillfully covered up in order to get their man and paint
the public perception that Cox was guilty, when in fact his only guilt was to
speak out against a government that proved itself to be capable of entrapment.
“This case is by far the worst travesty of justice I have encountered in my
25-year legal career.” said Fairbanks attorney Robert John who was able to
exonerate Cox of all charges in the Alaska State case. Writing in a press
release in 2014, John lamented, “While our tradition applauds those who stand up
and exercise their constitutional rights, the government’s new definition of
terrorism condemns such patriotic actions, as this young Alaskan family man
Schaeffer Cox, has unfortunately learned.”
A talented speaker and 2nd Amendment advocate, Cox was a skilled orator. After
the 2008 election, he was traveling outside Alaska warning citizens in fiery
speeches about the tyrannical path of the federal government. His speeches drew
the attention of the FBI and on February 16, 2010, the FBI initiated a
preliminary investigation. The next month, on March 25, 2010, an AUSA in
Anchorage, Joe Bottini, determined that Schaeffer “has not crossed the line”
between “protected speech” and “actionable threat.” Again, on April 4, 2010,
that opinion was independently confirmed by another AUSA, Stephen Cooper, in
Fairbanks who likewise agreed that legal action was inappropriate.
By every measure Cox was an outstanding citizen who had a reputation for helping
others. Yet even after soliciting the opinion of two Assistant United States
Attorneys, Bottini and Cooper, who each independently determined that legal
action was not appropriate, the FBI continued to “investigate” him.
Schaeffer Cox, now 32 years old, is no longer the clean-cut “kid” he used to be
– prison has changed that; his wrongful conviction has changed that. Sporting
lengthy locks and a scruffy face, he looks more the part the government falsely
portrayed him to be – the part of a ruffian ready to kill any and all federal,
state, and local officials that stood in his way while he created a new America.
It’s a part that, frankly, lacked any proof and only ever relied on
circumstantial evidence and claims by government paid witnesses. But, Cox’s
“investigation” and subsequent conviction have really formalized how the
government attacks cases of “political” interest; those where the government
decides they need to make an example out of someone, in order to make other
people fall in line.
Law enforcement as a whole has moved away from the more observational type of
investigating where they watch a person until that person commits a crime to a
more proactive role as the one’s with the criminal plan, oftentimes selling it
to unsuspecting “suspects” whose only “crime” beforehand was to speak what they
believe by exercising their first Amendment rights. Quite frankly, most people
only speak out against government abuse in their bedrooms and from behind closed
doors; Schaeffer Cox chose the pulpit, making him the perfect patsy for the
government to tell the budding patriot movement in Alaska, to back off.
Here is how it works, as it did in Cox’s case…
The government enlists the aid of individuals who are typically facing criminal
charges of their own, in exchange for greatly reduced or dismissed charges, as
well as pay. These people are often nefarious in their own right and have
usually been involved in crimes of dishonesty. You know, the perfect type of
person you’d want to be a witness against you – nothing to lose and everything
to gain by framing you. These people are known as Confidential Informants (CIs)
or Confidential Human Sources, and in Cox’s case there were two main CIs: Gerald
“JR” Olson and William “Bill” Fulton.
Olson is a serial criminal who first ran drugs as a trucker then later took
advantage of people as a contractor. According to the Alaska Dispatch,“Gerald R.
Olson, known as “J.R.” and as “Jerry,” first made headlines in 2005 when he was
convicted for illegally installing septic systems in Peters Creek and Wasilla,
most of which never worked. By fall 2009, he was again in trouble with the law,
accused of stealing a $69,000 construction tractor.”He faced several felonies
and tens, if not hundreds of thousands in restitution. It has been reported that
his felonies have all been dismissed, and the restitution he faced paid for.
Obviously, Olson’s part in allegedly framing Schaeffer Cox benefitted him
greatly…
Fulton, otherwise known as “Drop Zone Bill” has been reported as having an
illicit affair with FBI agent Sandi Klein, one of the agents working the Cox
investigation. In October of 2010, Fulton gained fame when he falsely arrested a
reporter while supposedly providing “security” at a campaign event for then U.S.
Senate Tea Party candidate Joe Miller. According to witnesses, he made death
threat ultimatums to Cox and others when the Cox group refused to act violently.
He even admitted to saying, “I am going to slit your f’ing throat and bleed you
out at my feet you son of a b….” while holding a knife to the neck of
Schaeffer’s friend, Les Zerbe, who stood against Fulton saying they had no plan
to act violently.
Fulton always claimed he had men and munitions ready to go and that Cox needed
to get on board. Fulton made copies of recordings the government asserted did
not exist and even recorded conversations with his handlers. He reportedly
proved to be such an embarrassment to the government that they didn’t even call
him as a witness. It has been reported that Fulton will be releasing a book of
his exploits – which purportedly will be full of self-aggrandizing pomposity.
In investigations of this kind, a CI’s “handler” – the FBI agent overseeing
him/her – sets the plan of attack and determines what type of information is
needed to set up, entrap and bring their targeted person down. In other words,
they begin the conspiracy. If this wasn’t true and their targeted person had
actually already committed a crime, they would simply arrest that person and try
them for that crime. Instead, they concoct a scenario and ensure the target
complies with their predetermined outcome. Much of it is staged beforehand for
the CI, but there are plenty of times a CI has to think on their feet and
literally make something up to keep the “investigation” going forward. If an
“investigation” failed, so would any hope of payment or court leniency of the
CI’s charges or convictions. Much of this happened during the Federally condoned
set-up of Schaeffer Cox, to the point that the plans that were prescribed to Cox
and his co-defendants were, in fact, constructs of the CIs.There were many
occasions during the Cox “investigation” where the CIs were told to tone it
down, or, as Olson testified to during the trial, that he had been told “quite a
bit” by his handler, “to not instigate stuff…” One of the biggest of these
“instigations,” and what ultimately led to Cox’s conviction, was the “kill 2 for
every 1” (2-4-1) plan and it’s supposed companion “hit list.”
According to Mike Anderson, a friend of Cox, the “hit list” also referred to as
the “target list” was a complete fabrication by the prosecution. Anderson
maintains what they claimed as a “hit list” was nothing more than the start of a
database of publicly available information. Anderson claims he was the sole
person to ever have possession of the database and the only time Cox ever asked
him for information from it was when Cox wanted to visit and speak with a state
trooper, whom he personally knew. Shortly thereafter, Cox and his wife went to
the Trooper’s home and spoke with him at length. This act resulted in one of the
main charges of an original state case, “conspiracy to commit murder” of that
same trooper – which Anderson was also indicted on. Eventually, the conspiracy
charges in the state case were dropped because prosecutors could not use the
FBI’s recordings which were gathered without a search warrant, and there was no
other evidence. Anderson was released as he faced no federal charges but was
later subpoenaed by the prosecution to testify at Cox’s federal trial.
Anderson maintains the database wasn’t ever talked about as, or considered a
“hit list” of any kind. It was as Cox put it, simply a way of being able to
communicate with officials either in person, phone or by mail. Anderson claims
that Cox didn’t function like a man with a plan when he saw Cox three days
before the arrests saying:
“The last time I saw Schaeffer before our kidnappings [arrests], he sat down on
the floor and asked me what he should do. He clearly had no plan. I told him to
clear up his misdemeanor charge and disband his groups. I was upset with him for
the bombastic false statements he publicly made. He had resorted to the state’s
tool of deception.”
As for the trial, Anderson asserts that he was waiting for more questions from
the defense counsel during cross-examination, which ultimately never came.
Anderson says he never got the chance to fully explain to the jury what the
database was and how it had nothing to do with anything called “2-4-1”. Anderson
denies having ever heard of 2-4-1 until he was in jail along with Cox. For his
failure to clarify that there was never a list or a plan, Anderson believes
Cox’s attorney, Nelson Traverso, completely mishandled Cox’s case to the point
where Cox should have a wonderful Ineffective Assistance of Counsel appeal.
As for the 2-4-1 plan itself, which greatly contributed to the conviction of
Cox, and made infamous by AUSA Skrocki, recent information has surfaced
regarding the origins of the plan, and it didn’t come from Schaeffer Cox. It was
a plan used as a “war of words” during the Freeman Ranch standoff in Montana,
years earlier in 1996. It was there that [CI] Gerald Olson, a young man, would
first hear this rhetoric, only to use it these many years later and attribute it
to Schaeffer Cox.
According to Norm Olson, co-founder of Alaska Citizens Militia and who, in 1996,
was in Montana to support the Freeman in their 81-day stand-off with the FBI, “I
first met [CI] Gerald Olson [no relation] during the Montana Freeman Standoff.
We used 2-4-1; 3-4-1; 4-4-1 as a propaganda tool because we were facing another
Waco-like situation. The only way we felt we could stop the federal forces was
to threaten them with retaliation, with reprisal, with retribution. And they
didn’t attack that ranch.”
This proves that CI Olson, who used this rhetoric before, pushed his own
preemptive agenda as though it was Cox’s plan. Cox had never heard, let alone
used this language before! I wonder how the jury would have reacted had they
been informed of that dirty little secret?
On February 19th, 2011 – 5 days after a bench warrant was issued for Schaeffer
Cox when he did not show up for a misdemeanor hearing on a state issue, a
marathon six-hour meeting between Cox and others ensued where CI Olson again
pushed the 2-4-1 plan, while he clandestinely recorded the entire meeting, yet
the jury never got to hear the portion where Schaeffer Cox summarily rejected
the idea of 2-4-1 saying:
“I’m not motivated by wanting to see their heads roll. I’m motivated by wanting
my family to live free and prosperous and happy.
“And with what you [CI Olson] were talking about for the 2-4-1 and stuff like
that … or any sort of very aggressive, offensive maneuver … seems like to me,
given the circumstances, that that would be more along the lines of looking for
a fight rather than strategically and prudently waging a war … at least right
now, and I can’t speak to the future. But I can say that I think for right now,
a 2-4-1 is — is — would — would be running out ahead of the scale and
sacrificing our self to no avail.
“I lost my house, my business, my whole fortune… And I could, if I was looking
for a fight and I was feeling vengeful, which what’s wrong with feeling
vengeful, man? We’ve been wronged. I could go out and I could sock it to them,
and that would satisfy my animalistic reaction … But it would — it would be a
detriment to the war … Because only when there is no future and there is no hope
for my wife and for my children can I then spend myself … in costing the enemy.
Because costing the enemy is not my objective. I would forgive them and have all
sorts of redemption and go to a picnic with them if they’d leave me alone. You
know, I don’t have hatred towards them.”
Definitely not a statement made by a man who allegedly conspired to kill people
in cold blood.
AUSA Skrocki tried desperately to shield the government from its practice of
entrapment during his closing arguments, talking about how the government didn’t
do this, the paid informant witnesses didn’t do that; the bottom-line is, it was
a conspiracy that first and always involved Fulton and Olson, the government CIs,
not Schaeffer Cox. It was their conspiracy and they continually pushed it on Cox
and his friends. And, without any question whatsoever, they were instructed to
do so by the Department of Justice!
If there is any question the government acted to entrap Schaeffer Cox, you only
have to refer to their own determination as to what entrapment is. According to
the Offices of the United States Attorneys:
Entrapment is a complete defense to a criminal charge, on the theory that
“Government agents may not originate a criminal design, implant in an innocent
person’s mind the disposition to commit a criminal act, and then induce
commission of the crime so that the Government may prosecute.” Jacobson v.
United States, 503 U.S. 540, 548 (1992). A valid entrapment defense has two
related elements: (1) government inducement of the crime, and (2) the
defendant’s lack of predisposition to engage in the criminal conduct.Mathews v.
United States, 485 U.S. 58, 63 (1988). Of the two elements, predisposition is by
far the more important.
Cox did not have the predisposition to engage in the violence the government
claims. The facts are indisputable. When pressed to act violently by the
government’s CIs, he always sided with his moral compass, and never agreed to
it.
Let’s face it, rhetoric drives society. It builds victors and villains based
solely upon the political interpretation of that speech – the stance of the day
carries with it the full force of “justice.” But when does protected speech
become an actionable offense? When do our spoken thoughts become crimes?
When the government says it does, as was evident in the Cox case – and the jury
bought it.
Bottom line, Cox’s speeches, not his actions, garnered the attention of the FBI
– that is a fact. If his words didn’t cause them any alarm, as Skrocki tried to
allude to in his closing arguments at trial, Cox would have never been at the
center of an investigation to begin with. Cox’s case really was about the
government stifling his 1st Amendment rights.
There was never a plan to initiate violence, as stated over and over as Cox
continually would say things like, “we’re not doing a Rambo, we’re pulling a
Gandhi.” The only times Cox stated violence were in reference to moments where
it would be defensive in nature, requiring an outside action for them to be
actionable. As an example, “if someone pulls a gun on me, I’m going to kill
them.” It is a statement that does not suggest you are planning on murdering
people. It requires an action for you to take action. Also, we’ve all said
something like, “I’ll kill him if he does ____.” Did you mean it, that you’d
actually kill this person? Of course not. If everyone who used this type of
language was put in prison, there would be no one left who was free! Even if you
are a gun owner, or have a knife in your kitchen drawer when you make an
outlandish statement like this, does that make your verbalization a real
tangible threat? Not hardly, unless of course a deceitful and dangerous
prosecutor learns of it.
Also, ask yourself: how far would you go to protect your family? Would it be
fair to assume you would say you’d kill to keep them safe? Now imagine if after
you said you would, out loud to a friend, you were arrested and convicted of
conspiracy to commit murder… That is just about how outlandish the case against
Schaeffer Cox was.
The fact is, the jury didn’t hear the majority of the audio recordings in Cox’s
case. They only heard a few cherry-picked moments that painted him in a bad
light. They never got to listen to the threats Cox faced by Fulton and others if
he didn’t go along with their plans. Nor did the jury get to read the emails
sent by FBI Special Agent Sutherland that assessed Cox as not being a threat.
The jury also never heard that the conspiracy charges weren’t in the initial
indictment against Cox and that the Government had offered Cox a deal on much
lesser charges.
“Had I known then what I know now, I would have accepted a plea deal on one or
two of the minor weapons charges, which is what the government tried to get me
to do. This would have avoided the conspiracy and solicitation to murder counts
altogether.” writes Cox for the website freeschaeffercox.com.
For the prosecution to prove the conspiracy, however, the jury had to be
convinced that Cox wanted to kill someone, sometime in the future, without any
real, non-hypothetical specifics.
A non-specific threat was exactly what the Skrocki prosecution deceitfully and
successfully sold to the jury by disallowing a vast majority of its own
recordings from being heard, and reports written by its own investigating
special agents from being read. They kept the truth from the jury; the truth
that Schaeffer Cox had been recorded wanting to leave Alaska with his family and
keep away from Bill Fulton; not wage war or randomly kill people as they
asserted, as the below FBI dispatch confirms:
FBI Dispatch Friday, March 04, 2011 5:33:00 PM
SC [Schaeffer Cox] is not willing to meet with CHS-2 [Fulton]. Does not want him
[Fulton] to know he is still in Fairbanks. Wants CHS-I [Olson] to broker deal.
SC willing to meet ‘trucker’ to discuss transport.
So much information was withheld from the jury that US~Observer is creating an
extensive on-line-only article outlining all of the evidence. In the near
future, look for “The Conspiracy to Entrap Schaeffer Cox.”
“At my trial, the prosecution just told a scary story about what I might have
done some day if they hadn’t ‘taken me out.’ Then they tried to block the jury
from seeing the truth about what I ACTUALLY DID DO in real life, i.e. told the
agent provocateurs ‘NO,’ then packed up my family to move out of the country to
get away from the coercive CIs and their death threat ultimatums.” – Schaeffer
Cox
Let’s face it, pre-crime or “thought crime” has become punishable by
imprisonment in this “modern” America where every expression is steeped in, what
a psychiatrist coined in 1970 as, microaggressions. The government is now able
to determine who and what should be targeted just by the words and expressions
people use, as evidenced by the Schaeffer Cox case and so many others that
follow this cookie-cutter strategy of; create the crime, provide the contrived
motivation, supply the tools, arrest, feed the jury full of deception and then
send your target to a prison cell. So, look out Facebook users, your words just
might hurt you because it all starts there!
Over the last several years there has been a surge of government distrust,
especially of the police. In this day and age of ready video recording devices (smartphones),
the police are under constant scrutiny of their actions. What these countless
hours of video have shown is that the system as a whole is broken. Not all
police are bad, true, many are outstanding, but even if you are a good cop and
the system is rotten, how long does it take before the system taints what you
do? Bottom line, the US Justice System no longer functions to dispense justice,
rather it is designed to fine and incarcerate – kill if need be. The perception
of your safety is all that matters.
Fortunately for Schaeffer Cox, the blinders are coming off and the truth can
finally be seen for what it was; the government conspiring to entrap a young,
idealistic, charismatic, patriot who believed that he had a right to stand up to
their overreach.
It’s time to call them out and hold them accountable. It’s time to bring
Schaeffer Cox home.
Karen Loeffler was the US Attorney for the District of Alaska and was ultimately
responsible for Schaeffer Cox’s incarceration. It was under her watch that this
travesty took place, and it should have fallen on her to rectify it. However,
Loeffler was one of the US Attorneys fired when Trump got into office. The
current US Attorney for Alaska is Bryan Schroder. Call his office at (907)
271-5071.
Editor’s Note: The US~Observer has been vigorously investigating the Schaeffer
Cox case. There are hundreds of hours of audio, video and documentation that
show Schaeffer Cox only ever spoke in a defensive manner, especially regarding
his family. Cox was quite literally being hunted by the government for
imprisonment, and he knew they were investigating him! Let that sink in. Why
would he attempt a plan that is not only foolish, it would never have changed
anything and only harmed the lives of the one’s he loved. If anything can be
said about Schaeffer Cox, it can be said that he isn’t stupid.
The fact is, the jury in the Cox case was completely deceived by a prosecutor
who twisted the manufactured “evidence” he cunningly fed to that naïve jury,
just as he and others had done in other cases such as the infamous Operation
Polar Pen convictions which were ultimately thrown out or vacated like Senator
Ted Stevens’. Furthermore, Cox had absolute ineffective assistance of counsel,
and the corrupted court condoned this complete mockery of justice!
Should you have any information regarding the Schaeffer Cox case, contact us
immediately. We are especially interested in anyone who had dealings with Gerald
“JR” Olson especially if Olson paid you restitution and/or Drop Zone owner Bill
Fulton. If you were a juror in this case and you now see that you were deceived,
please contact us immediately by calling 541-474-7885 or by email at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
.
* Please read “CMUs: The Federal Prison System’s Experiment in Social Isolation”
for a better understanding of what a CMU is and what Cox has had to endure. Cox
was released into the general population at the beginning of March 2016, and is
no longer in the CMU.
Article of interest: Entrapment Approved by Appeals Court
UPDATE 3/29/16 – William Fulton, one of the CIs in the Schaeffer Cox case,
referenced the US~Observer on Twitter saying, “these guys dint interview anybody
from the other side they are biased and ill informed.”
The US~Observer retorted with, “Interesting how you didn’t claim that it wasn’t
true. We had your words already – on the record, and recorded.”
Since this initial exchange, Fulton has continued his tirade on Twitter trying
to protect his “legacy” and make claims that the volumes of recordings are
somehow flawed, and that his recollection and word is more accurate than what is
already on the record.