Idaho businessman accused of trying to contract killings

A wealthy North Idaho businessman, already facing income tax evasion charges, now is accused of attempting to hire a hit man to kill a federal judge, a prosecutor and an IRS agent.

David Roland Hinkson, called a “hard-core American patriot” by his anti-government supporters, is scheduled to appear today in U.S. District Court in Coeur d’Alene.

There, at a detention hearing, authorities are expected to seek to revoke his $100,000 bond on unrelated federal charges filed last November.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Rafael M. Gonzalez Jr. says Hinkson has demonstrated he’s a flight risk and a danger to the community, and he should be held without bond.

Hinkson offered a hit man $10,000 to kill U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nancy Cook and IRS agent Steve Hines, according to court documents just unsealed.

FBI agent William Long, using an informant, obtained tape recordings of Hinkson making the death-threats on March 27, the court documents say.

On that day, Hinkson repeated his offer, first made in January, to pay the informant if he would kill the judge, prosecutor and IRS agent.

That claim was confirmed by two women who, on separate occasions, heard Hinkson discuss the murder-for-hire offer, the court documents say.

The informant did not agree to the plan, but did talk with FBI agents who began the investigation.

Hinkson, 46, was arrested Friday in Kooskia, Idaho, by Long and other FBI agents assigned to the Inland Northwest Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Idaho County sheriff’s deputies assisted in the arrest, made without incident after Hinkson was summoned to the sheriff’s office.

Hinkson has not been formally charged with threatening the lives of federal officials because he is being detained for violating conditions of his release on the earlier charges.

But a complaint or indictment charging him with plotting to kill the three federal officials is expected to be filed later, authorities say.

Hinkson, known nationally for marketing an “ionic water solution,” was first arrested last November on a 43-count federal indictment. It accused him of selling adulterated and misbranded drugs and structuring bank transactions to avoid reporting requirements.

He also was charged with not paying more than $938,000 in federal income taxes between 1997 and 2001.

Hinkson lives near Grangeville on 38 acres where he operates a manufacturing plant for his product, known as WaterOz. His company reportedly employs 50 people. The water product is bottled with various minerals such as calcium, cobalt, copper, gold, lithium and magnesium - and marketed with claims that it can cure everything from AIDS to ringworm, multiple sclerosis to incontinence.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has no authority over health supplements beyond making sure labels reflect actual contents, the WaterOz Web site says.

But the indictment against Hinkson alleges the actual mineral contents in sampled WaterOz products were far less than the labeled amounts.

In 2001, his company sold $3.8 million worth of its bottled mineral water over the Internet and through multilevel marketing, court documents say.

In 2000, the North Idaho company sold $4.4 million worth of product.

“The defendant has access to millions of dollars,” Cook said in a court document the U.S. attorney’s office filed in December to block Hinkson’s foreign travel.

The prosecutor’s motion was accompanied by documents that show Hinkson made wire transfers of money to banks in Mexico and Russia. Documents seized by the FBI say Hinkson purchased a large tract of land in Apizaco, Mexico, for $100,000. He also has made statements about fleeing to Antigua in the Caribbean.

Hinkson, who is being held in jail, couldn’t be reached for comment about the new allegations he faces. But at the time of his arrest in November, Hinkson said the charges against him were “payback” because he filed a $50 million suit against the prosecutor and IRS agent.

“They’re determined to get me,” Hinkson told The Spokesman-Review at that time.

The businessman said a predawn raid in November at his home was carried out by 60 federal agents from a half-dozen Western states - a detail that couldn’t be confirmed.

Hinkson said the raid “came close to being another Ruby Ridge.”

Almost immediately, various anti-government activists came to his defense with various Internet postings. His case was discussed by an anti-government group known as “The Watchmen on the Wall,” which regularly meets in Kamiah, Idaho. A Web-based anti-government group called “The Last Outpost” also championed Hinkson’s case.

Judge Lodge was assigned to preside over Hinkson’s trial on the tax charges, set for June 3 in Moscow. Cook was the federal prosecutor in the case, developed by Hines, who’s an IRS criminal investigator.

After the alleged death threat came to light, Lodge recused himself from the case last month. It has now been assigned to Judge B. Lynn Winmill.