Ex-militia leader pleads guilty
Charlie Puckett admits 3 charges; 7 others dropped
By Louise Taylor---HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
In an abrupt turnaround from his previous feisty rhetoric, former Kentucky Militia leader Charlie Puckett pleaded guilty yesterday to three of the 10 federal charges against him and agreed to a sentence that could stretch to just over three years.
Specifically, Puckett, 55, admitted that he:
-- had tried in early March to intimidate an unidentified witness against him;
-- illegally altered a gun to make it a fully automatic SKS machine gun; and
-- was a felon illegally in possession of a pistol.
"Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty and not for other reasons?" U.S. District Court Judge Jennifer B. Coffman asked Puckett.
"Yes, ma'am," Puckett replied.
The remaining charges, having to do with possession of pipe bombs, mines and ammunition, will be dropped at his sentencing Aug. 29, said Puckett's attorney, Gatewood Galbraith. Puckett also has to forfeit an arsenal the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms seized from his Garrard County house last year.
Puckett was to go on trial Tuesday.
"It was a decent deal," Galbraith said. "He was looking at 10 years if he went to trial, and Charlie's just not built for that kind of time."
Under the plea agreement, Puckett will serve between 30 and 37 months in prison. He could also face a fine of up to $250,000.
Coffman's pretrial rulings in the case and the possible shakiness of a key defense witness helped persuade Puckett that the plea deal was to his advantage, Galbraith said. Without the witness, he said Puckett "was going to be left without a defense."
Coffman noted that the plea seemed a relief to Puckett. "You're more relaxed than I've seen you before, Mr. Puckett," she said, smiling from the bench.
Puckett -- who the ATF says told a call-in radio show in 2000 that Coffman was a know-nothing who had illegally ordered the Ten Commandments removed from the McCreary County courthouse -- grinned widely and silently nodded his agreement.
"Once he made the decision, you could tell it was a great burden off his shoulders," Galbraith said later. "Mr. Puckett is a simple man. He's a mechanic and a family man. ... Once he became a figurehead for the Kentucky Militia, it became burdensome. He is just not a political animal."
Puckett, who has been the commander and self-described brigadier general of the Kentucky Militia -- a paramilitary group that experts think is among the most active in the country -- has completely cut his ties with the group, Galbraith said.
Puckett was indicted in February, a few months after ATF agents raided his Garrard County home and found almost 35,000 rounds of ammunition, pipe bombs, guns and The Anarchist's Cookbook, a how-to manual for domestic terrorism. Puckett never shied from his dislike of the ATF, and posted a sign near his driveway that announced "ATF Don't Cross This Line" above a hangman's noose hanging from a tree.
The ATF was led to Puckett while searching for Stephen Anderson, a former Kentucky Militia member who was accused of shooting up a Bell County deputy sheriff's cruiser in October, then disappeared. Anderson has not been found, despite a $20,000 reward offered by the ATF.
After the indictment was issued in February, Puckett was placed on house arrest, but in March he slipped his electronic monitoring bracelet and was on the lam for about three weeks before he voluntarily turned himself in to Jessamine County Sheriff Joe Walker.
Puckett has argued that he was allowed to own firearms because the federal law that prohibits felons from gun ownership was not enacted until 1968, two years after his felony conviction for breaking into a Virginia store.
He also has several misdemeanor convictions in Virginia and Kentucky, including indecent exposure and disorderly conduct, all dating from the 1960s and '70s, according to the ATF. The ATF sworn statement says that after one disorderly-conduct arrest in Versailles in 1972, Puckett was referred to psychiatrists at the University of Kentucky. That arrest was his last before the federal charges this year. (END STORY)
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I cannot believe that Puckett rolled over this easy...so much for the "ex post facto" defense.
Also, as of now, every Kentucky militia website is offline. Coincidence?
Appreciate your finding and posting this. It got past me.
Mr. Puckett didn't want to spend the rest of his life in prision. It's that simple. I certainly can't blame him for that. The AFT stacked up enough charges to give Mr. Puckett the room to make a deal. They didn't want a test case and read Mr. Puckett correctly as wanting to minimize the disruption of his life.
If we want to test "ex post facto" we're going to have to come up with a situation where we have better control over the parameters and someone is not sitting in jail looking at years in prision if it goes the wrong way.