In the latest development in the Hutaree Christian militia federal case, it has been reported that a cooprating witness and undercover FBI agent possibly helped authorities into bringing criminal charges against the nine suspects.
Out of the nine Hutaree militia group suspects, eight will appear before the U.S. District Court in Detroit at 1 p.m. today for a detention hearing where a judge will decide if they can be kept in custody.
Court-appointed attorney Michael Rataj, who represents the sole woman defendant, Tina Stone, 44, of Clayton said, "To my knowledge, there are no wiretaps but I could be wrong,” meaning that there is no concrete information if the undercover agents infiltrated the group or not.
The alleged leader of the Hutaree is David B. Stone, 45, of Clayton who is also husband of Tina Stone. Appearing in court will be David Stone along with his son Joshua Stone, 21, and adopted son David B. Stone Jr., of Adrian. Others suspects to appear are Joshua Clough, 28, of Blissfield; Michael Meeks, 40, of Manchester; Kristopher Sickles, 27, of Sandusky, Ohio and Jacob Ward, 33, of Huron, Ohio.
The ninth suspect, Thomas Piatek, 46, of Whiting, Ind., will appear in an Indiana court today.
The charges against them are felony charges of attempted use of weapons of mass destruction and seditious conspiracy. The charge can possibly lead to life imprisonment if proved.
Stone and his accomplices were plotting to kill a police officer in April and were also planning to kill lot of other people by hiding homemade bombs on the funeral processional route.
