Schedule Forces District Judge To Move Freeman Sentencing

Freeman leader LeRoy M. Schweitzer will be sentenced here Thursday for income tax violations, U.S. District Judge Charles C. Lovell said Monday.

Sentencing had been set for Thursday in Billings, but Lovell said the change was necessitated by his schedule.

A federal jury convicted Schweitzer in September last year of failing to pay thousands of dollars in income taxes for the years 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1987.

A second jury convicted him the next day of failing to appear for trial in 1992. That conviction carries a maximum penalty of a year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

Schweitzer was a fugitive until March 25, 1996, when undercover FBI agents lured him out of the Freemen’s farm compound northwest of Jordan, Mont. The arrest launched the Freemen’s 81-day standoff with FBI agents.