As you may well have heard by now, my lawyers and I concluded a plea
bargain with the Ashland county prosecutor's office Friday 8/21. The
reason that this is the first you have heard of it is complete secrecy
was part of the deal, for reasons which completely escape me. Be that as
it may, everything went off without a hitch. The settlement included no
jail time (well, technically a suspended sentence), a year's
unsupervised probation, a $500 fine, and $300-odd dollars in court
costs. *All* of my seized property is to be returned; specifically
including my pistols, ammo, rifle, swords, and electronics.
So that there is no misunderstanding on this, everyone should be aware
that I consider this settlement at best a damn fine fighting retreat,
not a victory. The vitally important philosophical and legal points
involved in the case are going to go unstated. From a personal and
practical standpoint this is a very good result, but from a long-term
viewpoint of preserving freedom this is a far less than optimal outcome.
But I have a pretty strong aversion to ignoring the advice of people I
am paying large sums of money for their expertise, and the *unanimous*
opinion of the legal team was to accept this deal. This is by no means
the end of the legal struggle, but it *does* mark the end of my own
personal jeopardy.
Let me take this opportunity to as publicly as possible thank my lawyer
Jim Brightbill for all his hard work, and congratulate him on securing
such a favorable deal. It has been a long slog through a lot of twists
and turns, but we made it. Let me also thank the other members of the
legal team; I am only going to mention my sister Brenda by name because
I haven't cleared mentioning the other 5 with them. The thanks are no
less heartfelt for being safely anonymous. And she deserves special
mention as the one who was there for me when I had only 1 phone call to
try to begin fighting back in a very bad situation. She and the rest of
my family and close friends have given me the emotional support that is
so essential in a situation like this, and there is no way I can ever
thank them enough.
Carl Bussjaeger deserves special mention for his tireless work in
speaking out when I was muzzled. It's been frustrating at times, brother
knight, but you hung in there and never gave up, even when the only
answer I could give you was "I can't talk about that". Special thanks to
all my friends both old and new, who went out of their way to offer
every sort of support imaginable - from JR & EC who took me out to
dinner, movies, and banana splits more times than you can believe, to DB
& ES who called periodically to make sure I was holding up and keep me
posted on what the activist community was doing, EL, JL, & SC for all
your behind-the-scenes work, Louis James & Sunni Maravillosa for
dropping everything to kick things off back when this all started,
FreeMatt & Charlie for scaring the hell out of me in my hotel room that
night, "Mama" Sue for both publicity and personal support, all the
members of LRT & TCF who jumped in whenever needed, and Angel Shamaya,
Aaron Zelman, and Claire Wolfe for consistent and principled support and
advice throughout this ordeal.
I am going to attempt to individually mention all the fine organizations
that rallied to my side. FMN, JPFO, ISIL, FIJA, KABA, GO-NH, GOA, AFA,
LRT, RRND, TPoL, TCF, the Mental Militia, FSP, FSW, and likely dozens of
others I am forgetting. One of the great strengths of the freedom
movement is that we all pull together when the chips are down, and my
case certainly exemplifies that spirit.
Last, and most especially, I want to thank all those people who didn't
know me before this all started who understood the important principles
involved, and opened their hearts and helped out in every way
imaginable. The financial support has kept me alive, and I even yet
can't talk about just how effective your letters and commentary has been
- keep it up, gang. You deserve the kudos for getting us to this first
important milestone in this particular skirmish of the war for freedom.
I personally promise you that the team that has been assembled to
spearhead the "Free Hunter" effort is only beginning to produce results.
We're not yet finished talking with Verizon, and there are a lot of
other possibilities for action that we're exploring.
Jeffrey L "the Hunter" Jordan
