Jim Bell Sentenced: AP Report

[John Young <jya@pipeline.com>]

>From The Oregonian online: http://www.oregonlive.com/


              Bell gets 11 months in prison, 3
                years supervised release, fine 

                             The Associated Press
                           12/12/97 7:54 PM Eastern

             TACOMA (AP) -- A federal judge Friday imposed an 11-month
             sentence for tax violations on James Dalton Bell, whose 10-part
             Internet essay, "Assassination Politics," proposed apparent
             "bounties" on government officials. 

             Federal prosecutors say he was advocating bounties on public
             officials he considered "miscreants" and "slimeballs." Bell has
said
             he was theorizing, not advocating any killing. 

             The Vancouver, Wash., man pleaded guilty in July to trying to
             impede Internal Revenue Service agents and to using false Social
             Security numbers to hide his assets. 

             After his prison term, U.S. District Judge Franklin Burgess
             ordered Bell to undergo three years of supervised release. He also
             was ordered to pay $1,359 in restitution for damage caused by a
             stink bomb he set off at the IRS's Vancouver office. 

             Bell's essay was cited in the indictment as a means by which he
             sought to intimidate IRS agents, Assistant U.S. Attorney Annmarie
             Levins said. 

             A news release from federal prosecutors says that as part of his
             plea agreement, Bell "admitted advocating a scheme called
             `Assassination Politics' whereby persons would be rewarded with
             `digital cash' through the Internet for killing undesirable
people. 

             "Bell identified government employees, particularly IRS
             employees, as such undesirable people, and argued that the threat
             of `Assassination Politics' would intimidate them from enforcing
             Internal Revenue laws for fear of being assassinated." 

             He also admitted proposing "Assassination Politics" as an
             enforcement mechanism for the anti-government Oregon extremist
             group Multnomah County Common Law Court, which purports to
             try government officials for performance of their duties, the
             release said. 

             Prosecutors and Bell's public defender sought a sentence of 6 to
             12 months as part of a plea bargain. Federal probation officers
             recommended 27 months, citing the "totality" of Bell's behavior. 

             Bell described "Assassination Politics" as a means for ordinary
             citizens to take action against public officials they perceived as
             having violated their rights. 

             "What if they could go to their computers, type in the miscreant's
             name and select a dollar amount. The amount they, themselves,
             would be willing to pay to anyone who `predicts' that
             officeholder's death," he wrote. 

             "That donation would be sent, encrypted and anonymously, to a
             central registry organization and be totaled, with the total amount
             available within seconds to any interested individual." 

             He noted that if one person in 1,000 "was willing to pay $1 to see
             some government slimeball dead, that would be, in effect, a
             $250,000 bounty on his head." 

             In an April raid on the home Bell shared with his elderly parents,
             authorities found the home addresses of about 70 IRS employees,
             as well as three semiautomatic assault rifes, a handgun and
             potentially deadly chemicals. He was arrested in May.