Cox’s sentence came a day after another foot soldier in the Alaska Peacekeepers Militia, 57-year-old Lonnie Vernon, received the same sentence. Before he was sentenced, Cox broke down several times, grabbing tissues and fighting back tears. “I put myself here, with my own words,” he said before pausing. “And I feel horrible about that.”
Cox came to the attention of the FBI in late 2009 after speeches in Montana that claimed the Fairbanks militia had 3,500 members and was armed with mines and other military weapons. But the group only had about a dozen members and, as Bryan noted, never trained for military duty.
As the investigation unfolded over more than a year, the FBI eventually used an informant to infiltrate the group. He recorded more than 100 hours of conversations. Cox’s attorney Nelson Traverso claimed during the trial that the case was an overreach by prosecutors and an attempt to silence Cox and his offensive but protected speech.
Cox once told a state judge some militia members would sooner murder her than appear before her, and told an Alaska State Trooper the militia had officers outgunned. Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Skrocki said that Cox eventually crossed the line separating offhand comments about killing someone to formulation of plans to do so.
Prosecutors said the group hatched a “2-for-1” plan — killing two law enforcement officials for every militia member killed — an idea another convicted member, Coleman Barney, acknowledged at his trial was discussed twice but never put into play. Group members also amassed silencers and grenades.
A psychological exam ordered by Cox’s new attorney, Peter Camiel of Seattle, after he was convicted showed Cox suffered from several paranoid disorders.
“I put a lot of people in fear by the things that I said,” Cox told the court Tuesday. “Some of the crazy stuff that was coming out of my mouth, I see that, and I sounded horrible. “I couldn’t have sounded any worse if I tried,” he said. “The more scared I got, the crazier the stuff. I wasn’t thinking, I was panicking.”
The government sought a sentence of 35 years, while Camiel was seeking a much shorter sentence and to allow Cox’s mental condition to be treated with drugs and counseling. At the end of the trial in June, Bryan said he wrote down observations about Cox, which included: paranoia, grandiosity, narcissism, egocentricity and pathological lying.