ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Schaeffer Cox carries himself with youthful swagger as he spreads a message to his many admirers of an out-of-control federal government bulldozing individual freedoms.
Federal prosecutors portray him quite differently: as a dangerous Alaska militia leader who with others amassed a huge cache of illegal weapons while plotting a strategy to one day kill judges, state troopers and other government officials.
The federal trial of Cox and two other Alaska men — Coleman Barney and Lonnie Vernon 56 — began last week and could last another month.
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Defense attorneys plan to argue that the government badly overstepped its authority, ensnaring the men via an informant who encouraged weapons purchases and pushed for violence.