Hutaree member's home confinement isn't necessary, attorneys argue

Attorneys for Hutaree militia member David Stone Jr. recently filed a motion asking the court to consider terminating a number of bond conditions imposed on him as he awaits trial on charges, including seditious conspiracy.

The motion asks the court to modify or terminate conditions subjecting him to home confinement, electronic monitoring and drug testing and forbidding him from drinking alcohol.

David Stone Jr.

Stone Jr., 21, of Adrian, is among nine Hutaree members arrested in March of 2010 after being accused in a plot to levy war against the U.S. government. A number of members were arrested after being lured to an Ann Arbor warehouse, where an FBI agent who infiltrated the group set up a memorial service after claiming one of the group's members had died. The member was an informant and had not died, court records show. A SWAT team raided the event.

A brief supporting the motion says that in 20 months of secret recordings of Hutaree by at least two undercover agents and a confidential informant, Stone Jr. isn’t heard making a “single anti-government or anti-law enforcement utterance.”

The government has already agreed to eliminate the no-alcohol and drug-testing conditions, the motion says, but opposes terminating home confinement and electronic monitoring. Stone Jr. has no history of substance abuse, never tested positive for drug use, has been working at a farm and studying for his GED, the motion says. It claims Stone Jr. has exhibited “model behavior over the past year."

The motion was filed Friday and U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts is expected to schedule a hearing on it within the next month. The trial is scheduled for September.

Among those charged is 41-year-old Michael Meeks of Bridgewater Township.

Lee Higgins covers crime and courts for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached by phone at (734) 623-2527 and email at leehiggins@annarbor.com.