Man Pleads Not Guilty In 3 Deaths
An Oklahoma white supremacist has pleaded innocent in federal court to murder and racketeering charges stemming from the January 1996 deaths of an Arkansas gun dealer and his family.
Danny Lee, 24, of Yukon, Okla., was accompanied by court-appointed attorneys Jack Lassiter and Cathleen Compton in an appearance Monday before U.S. Magistrate John F. Forster.
Lee and two other men - from Washington and Idaho - are charged in connection with what federal prosecutors say was a plot to revolt against the U.S. government and create a republic whose citizenship would be limited to certain white people.
Lee asked for a jury trial on the seven charges he faces: three counts of murder in aid of racketeering and single counts of racketeering, conspiracy to commit murder in aid of racketeering, robbery conspiracy and the use of a firearm in a conspiracy to commit murder.
Lee and a co-defendant, Chevie Kehoe, 24, of Colville, Wash., are accused of killing William Mueller, 53; Nancy Mueller, 28; and her daughter, Sarah Powell, 8.
Their bodies were found in a backwater of Illinois Bayou north of Russellville, Ark. The three had been gagged and bound with duct tape and their heads had been wrapped in plastic bags.
A third co-defendant, Faron Lovelace, 40, of Sandpoint, is accused only of racketeering.
Forster set Lee’s trial for Feb. 5, but the trial is likely to be postponed because his co-defendants have not been arraigned. They were charged in a 15-page indictment handed up Dec. 12 by a federal grand jury.
Lee is jailed in Pope County, Ark., where he faces state charges of capital murder. But Pope County Prosecutor David Gibbons has said he plans to dismiss the state charges and allow the prosecution to proceed in federal court.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Stripling said he will oppose bail for Lee, but Lassiter said Monday that the defense team is not ready to discuss the matter.
The indictment alleges that Lee and Kehoe broke into the Muellers’ home while the family was absent, then held them at gunpoint when they returned home. Kehoe and Lee bound the family and covered their heads with trash bags, sealing them at the neck, before attaching rocks to their bodies and placing them in the bayou, the indictment claims.
Pope County Sheriff Jay Winters said the Muellers and Kehoe apparently had met through gun shows and militia-survivalist activities.
Kehoe and his brother, Cheyne Kehoe, 21, were involved in a shootout with Ohio police which was caught on videotape by a camera mounted on a police car and then was broadcast nationwide last February.
The Wilmington, Ohio, trial in that case is scheduled to begin today for Cheyne Kehoe. Lawyers said Tuesday the trial is expected to last at least three days.
None of the four officers shot Feb. 15 in the Wilmington area was injured, but a passer-by was wounded by a flying fragment, authorities said.
Selection of Kehoe’s trial jury is to start this morning. Authorities plan tight security at the Clinton County Courthouse, about 50 miles northeast of Cincinnati.