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08/22/2004 Archived Entry: "Hunter is free"

HUNTER IS FREE. And he even gets his "detonator," his guns, and his Lord of the Rings souvenir sword back. Yay!!!

Here's Hunter's formal statement:

As you may well have heard by now, my lawyers and I concluded a plea bargain with the Ashland county prosecutor's office Friday 8/20. The reason that this is the first you have heard of it is complete secrecy was part of the deal, for reasons which completely escape me. Be that as it may, everything went off without a hitch. The settlement included no jail time (well, technically a suspended sentence), a year's unsupervised probation, a $500 fine, and $300-odd dollars in court costs. All of my seized property is to be returned; specifically including my pistols, ammo, rifle, swords, and electronics.

So that there is no misunderstanding on this, everyone should be aware that I consider this settlement at best a damn fine fighting retreat, not a victory. The vitally important philosophical and legal points involved in the case are going to go unstated. From a personal and practical standpoint this is a very good result, but from a long-term viewpoint of preserving freedom this is a far less than optimal outcome. But I have a pretty strong aversion to ignoring the advice of people I am paying large sums of money for their expertise, and the unanimous opinion of the legal team was to accept this deal. This is by no means the end of the legal struggle, but it does mark the end of my own personal jeopardy.

Let me take this opportunity to as publicly as possible thank my lawyer, Jim Brightbill, for all his hard work, and congratulate him on securing such a favorable deal. It has been a long slog through a lot of twists and turns, but we made it. Let me also thank the other members of the legal team; I am only going to mention my sister, Brenda, by name because I haven't cleared mentioning the other five with them. The thanks are no less heartfelt for being safely anonymous. And she deserves special mention as the one who was there for me when I had only one phone call to try to begin fighting back in a very bad situation. She and the rest of my family and close friends have given me the emotional support that is so essential in a situation like this, and there is no way I can ever thank them enough.

Carl Bussjaeger deserves special mention for his tireless work in speaking out when I was muzzled. It's been frustrating at times, brother knight, but you hung in there and never gave up, even when the only answer I could give you was "I can't talk about that". Special thanks to all my friends both old and new, who went out of their way to offer every sort of support imaginable - from JR & EC who took me out to dinner, movies, and banana splits more times than you can believe, to DB & ES who called periodically to make sure I was holding up and keep me posted on what the activist community was doing, EL, JL, & SC for all your behind-the-scenes work, Louis James & Sunni Maravillosa for dropping everything to kick things off back when this all started, FreeMatt & Charlie for scaring the hell out of me in my hotel room that night, "Mama" Sue for both publicity and personal support, all the members of LRT & TCF who jumped in whenever needed, and Angel Shamaya, Aaron Zelman, and Claire Wolfe for consistent and principled support and advice throughout this ordeal.

I am going to attempt to individually mention all the fine organizations that rallied to my side. FMN, JPFO, ISIL, FIJA, KABA, GO-NH, GOA, AFA, LRT, RRND, TPoL, TCF, the Mental Militia, FSP, FSW, and likely dozens of others I am forgetting. One of the great strengths of the freedom movement is that we all pull together when the chips are down, and my case certainly exemplifies that spirit.

Last, and most especially, I want to thank all those people who didn't know me before this all started who understood the important principles involved, and opened their hearts and helped out in every way imaginable. The financial support has kept me alive, and I even yet can't talk about just how effective your letters and commentary has been - keep it up, gang. You deserve the kudos for getting us to this first important milestone in this particular skirmish of the war for freedom. I personally promise you that the team that has been assembled to spearhead the "Free Hunter" effort is only beginning to produce results. We're not yet finished talking with Verizon, and there are a lot of other possibilities for action that we're exploring.

Jeffrey L "the Hunter" Jordan

Posted by Claire @ 08:33 AM CST
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