Accused militia members' arrests stun community

A story grew clearer Wednesday through federal affidavits, interviews and court statements accusing Thomas, Roberts and two other men -- Ray H. Adams, 65, and Samuel J. Crump, 68 -- of planning to unleash the toxic agent ricin across Atlanta and other major U.S. cities, bomb federal buildings and take innocent lives. Documents say the men intended to launch their plot within a year.

At that meeting in June, Thomas talked about buying explosives, silencers and mines, and killing officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Drug Enforcement Administration. It was a plan based on a novel by Mike Vanderboegh, a former militia leader and blogger, that detailed killing Justice Department attorneys, Thomas said, according to the FBI affidavits.

“Now, of course, that’s just fiction, but that’s a damn good idea,” Thomas, a retired aerospace engineer, once told the others in the so-called “covert group,” the documents said.

On Wednesday, the four North Georgia men -- Thomas from Cleveland and the rest from Toccoa -- stood before U.S. Magistrate Court Judge Susan Cole to face an array of terrorism charges. Thomas and Roberts were the first to appear and could be seen cupping their ears to better hear the judge's instructions. Roberts' wife, Margaret, was overheard fretting about her husband's access to medications. Adams and Crump also appeared, each wearing handcuffs and leg shackles.

All four requested and were granted court-appointed attorneys who'll represent them at a probable cause hearing scheduled for next Wednesday. Bond won't be considered until that hearing. Family members declined to comment as they left the courthouse, shielded by federal public defender Jeff Ertel.

They had been arrested Tuesday; their homes were searched and computers seized. Their neighbors and friends, especially those at the Waffle House where they are accused of conspiring, were stunned at the unfolding events.

“If you had told me these men did these things before I heard about the investigation from the FBI, I would have told you you’re a liar,” said Stephens County Sheriff Randy Shirley, who has known Roberts, Adams and Crump for more than three decades. “It just does not add up.”

Because until now, it’s believed the men have not had brushes with the law.

“Dan has always respected the law, never had any problem with the law," Margaret Roberts said Tuesday, hours after her husband was arrested and her home searched.

Roberts, 59, was incredulous at the charges against her husband, a retired small businessman. Still shaking from seeing armed agents in her home, she said Tuesday that she had no inkling her husband could be involved in such a plot. She didn't believe it.

"All I knew is that Dan was getting first-aid classes, he was doing that in case of a disaster or something. That’s all I knew," she said. "There was one time two men came here to his building in the yard, but nothing has never gone on here."

But Mark Pitcavage, who tracks right-wing extremist movements for the Anti-Defamation League, said Roberts has been involved in militia-type activities since at least 2001. Then, Roberts was involved with the Militia of Georgia, Pitcavage said, even appearing in a 2001 Atlanta Journal-Constitution photograph accompanying a story about Georgia militia activity.

Pitcavage said he did not recognize the names of the other men, but he was struck by their ages, older than the "typical" militia participant. Militia members historically have been middle-age white men who run small businesses or work blue-collar jobs, he said, but that profile has changed in recent years as social networking brought in younger, 20-something members.

“But these four people are on the opposite end of the spectrum,” he said.

Some of the "covert group" members have worked for the government in some capacity, according to the affidavits. Adams formerly worked for the Agricultural Research Service as a lab technician, the U.S. Department of Agriculture verified to the FBI, and Crump once worked for a contractor doing maintenance work for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Thomas, according to a biography he posted on a conservative website, served in the U.S. Navy for 30 years.

FBI documents allege that beginning in March and as recently as last week, the men -- whom federal officials have not identified as part of a larger militia -- met at their homes and North Georgia restaurants. Some had made trips to Atlanta federal buildings to conduct reconnaissance. The affidavits describe Thomas and Roberts as working to obtain explosive devices and silencers, while Adams and Crump seemed largely tasked with developing ricin, a toxin that can be fatal if inhaled or ingested, from easily obtained castor beans.

Documents allege that Crump planned to disperse the ricin in various U.S. cities including Atlanta, Newark, N.J., and Washington. In Atlanta, the documents said, the plan was to unleash the powdery substance on I-285, I-75 and U.S. 41.

“All ya gotta do is lay it in the damn road, the cars are gonna spread it,” Crump told the group at a Sept. 17 meeting, according to an affidavit.

But could the group have made ricin?

“No, what they would have wound up with is dried castor powder,” said George Smith, a senior fellow for GlobalSecurity.org, a public information organization on terrorism and homeland security. “They would not be able to make that into a weapon of mass destruction, and it’s not something even a lab technician can really do.”

But Pitcavage called the men's interest in ricin alarming.

"If those allegations are true," he said, "this was something to take very seriously."

Nearly three years ago, in an article published Dec. 12, 2008, on Redstate.com, Thomas asserted that he does not "advocate a general rebellion against the U.S. Government for cause" and is "not an anarchist." He ended his missive with the following statement involving a Thomas Jefferson quote:

"‘The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants' can only be described now as the quaint uttering of an historical personage," he wrote. "My other half disagrees with me; but, she always does."

-- Staff writer Christian Boone contributed to this article.