Schaeffer Cox with his 2 children.

Comments by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News

Today, Health Impact News is reporting on the story of Francis August Schaeffer Cox. Schaeffer Cox is allegedly a political prisoner today, serving a 26 year prison sentence for crimes he never committed.

Who is Schaeffer Cox? From his own words written from prison in 2013:

Dear Sensible People of a Candid World,

My name is Francis August Schaeffer Cox. I am a 29 year old, husband and a father of two young children.

I am a political prisoner in a secret Federal prison located in Marion, Illinois. I was sentenced to just under 26 years in prison on January of 2013.

I haven’t done anything illegal and I certainly haven’t done anything morally wrong. I will share my story with you as best as can be done in a letter. It is my hope that after investigating what has been done to me and my family you will conclude that it would be right for you to help us. To that end, this is our story.

I was born in Denver, Colorado U.S.A. to Gary and Jennifer Cox. My father, who attended West Point, was the pastor of a small church and taught Greek and Hebrew at a local university.

My mother was a schoolteacher before she had children. After my sister, two brothers, and I were born she stayed home to raise us and see to it that we all got a proper education.

In the early 90’s my father went into business with his brother David Cox, the former Chief of Staff for Senator David L. Boris. As a family we provided residential assisted living to the elderly. The business was very successful and our family became quite wealthy.

In 1999 my parents moved our family from Denver, Colorado to Fairbanks, Alaska where, 11 years later, I would be arrested and sent to prison after being accused of a vague and nonspecific conspiracy against the Federal Government. A conspiracy that, the prosecutors argued [sic], would take place at some unknown future time many years from now.

As a young man I loved the frontier of Alaska. At age 18 I led a month long expedition to the summit of 6100 meter Mt. McKinley. I would lead a second expedition two years later with my father by my side and in 2005 a third expedition that included my beautiful and beloved wife Marti. All three were successful.

My godparents introduced me to the sea and the commercial fishing industry. And together we pioneered new methods to harvest caviar from wild herring and release the fish unharmed. I did an apprenticeship in the construction industry and studied Artic [sic] building techniques. Before going into business for myself, I worked with a large company to build power plants and remote gold ore processing facilities in Alaska’s wilderness.

By age 23, with my faithful and loving wife as my partner, I was an accomplished businessman in my own right. Having achieved enough financial independence to no longer be living paycheck to paycheck I decided to run for public office.

I ran for the State House of Representatives. I came in second in a three way race with roughly 38% of the vote, an impressive feat for such a young, political newcomer. I was positioned well for a win in the next elections, two years later.

Little did I know the Federal government was about to unleash a hellish nightmare on me and my family that would prevent that from ever happening. My platform was simple: The government needs to follow the Constitution because it’s the law. I argued that when the government disregards the law and tramples on others, simply because they are powerful enough to do so and get away with it, it hurts them as a Nation. (continued below)

State Sponsored Kidnapping of Children for Political Reasons

Before continuing on with the Schaeffer Cox story, we need to address the question: Why is Health Impact News and MedicalKidnap.com publishing the Schaeffer Cox family story?

We are one of the few news sources that regularly reports on the state-sponsored kidnapping of children away from families by using “Child Protection Services.” We mostly cover medical kidnapping stories, explaining how families all across the U.S., every day, are losing their children simply because they disagreed with doctors, or were accused by medical professionals of abusing their children, when often such “abuse” is simply failing to take a physician’s advice for medical procedures.

Over the past few years, we have documented how children can be removed from families by the government in what has become a billion dollar child trafficking system. See:

The U.S. Foster Care System: Modern Day Slavery and Child Trafficking

Child Kidnapping and Trafficking: A Lucrative U.S. Business Funded by Taxpayers Called “Foster Care”

While a primary motivation to remove children from families and put them into the custody of the state is financial (many billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of government jobs), there are other reasons such as putting sick children into drug trials, and trafficking them to pedophile groups. See:

Child Sex Trafficking through Child “Protection” Services Exposed – Kidnapping Children for Sex

Arizona Places 2 Year Old Child in Foster Pornographic Pedophile Ring – Foster Mom Burns 80% of Her Body

One of the lesser known reasons why children are removed from their families is for political reasons. We have previously reported on child kidnappings for political reasons with the North Carolina Randy Davis stories, and the story of Arlan Lee, a Native American former social worker turned whistleblower in South Dakota who had his own kids targeted (video here).

Randy Davis is also Native American, and when he went public and reported alleged corruption with “senators, the NC Commission of Indian Affairs, the Coharie Intra-Tribal Council, and entire departments within Sampson County – including Child Protection Services (CPS)” they allegedly tried to silence him by taking away his daughter. (See: EXCLUSIVE: Corrupt North Carolina Officials Try to Silence Whistleblower Using Child Protection Services)

As we look into the Schaeffer Cox story, we see a new twist to using CPS for political reasons, as the FBI allegedly tried to manipulate the strong paternal bond between parent and child by using CPS to target his child.

Why Did the FBI Target Schaeffer Cox?

There is a public website documenting Schaeffer’s case, with links to videos, court documents, etc.

Some excerpts from freeschaeffer.com:

Schaeffer Cox, a well known 2nd Amendment lobbyist who had won 38% of the vote in a State House election, became the subject of an intense FBI investigation after he angered state and federal authorities by openly accusing them of drug trafficking and child prostitution.

Oil pipeline service company executive, Bill Allen, who had been spared prosecution on multiple counts of sexual abuse of minors in exchange for his 2008 testimony against pro-2nd Amendment Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, was among those implicated. “The State Wide Drug Taskforce supplied children for sex to a number of state and federal officials in exchange for those official’s cooperation in concealing the ongoing illicit drug trafficking activities of the State Wide Drug Taskforce,” Schaeffer Cox said.

Not long after these public statements, the same departments that Schaeffer Cox accused of corruption sent in numerous provocateurs to try to switch his efforts off of exposing corruption and on to violent vigilante-type actions. Schaeffer Cox, who believes in non-aggression and voluntarism, can be heard on multiple undercover recordings telling the provocateurs, “No, I’m going to pull a Ghandi, NOT a Rambo” and “if we turn violent, people will see us as the bad guys.”

In what some have called a deviation from accepted investigative techniques, the FBI responded to Schaeffer Cox’s rejection of their violent proposals by creating a threat to his children that could serve as a motivator.

Working with the Office of Child Services, the FBI filed a child neglect complaint regarding Schaeffer and his wife Marti’s 1 and 1/2 year old son. Because they do not require probable cause, child neglect complaints are an attractive tool for investigators who wish to enter a home, but lack any evidence to support a warrant.

Once Schaeffer Cox was made aware of the “writ of assistance” issued for the seizure of his young son, the FBI dispatched undercover provocateur, Bill Fulton, to again try to convince Schaeffer Cox to go on a shooting spree in response to these new developments. Bill Fulton, acting under the supervision of FBI Special Agent Sandra Klein, pointed out that the child neglect complaint was obviously the corrupt work of Schaeffer Cox’s political adversaries in the government, and urged him to go kill all officials involved.

When Schaeffer Cox and his friend, Les Zerbe, refused Fulton’s violent suggestions a second time, Fulton flew into a rage, held a hunting knife to Les Zerbe’s throat, and told him he would “slit his throat open and bleed him out at his feet” if he and Cox didn’t agree to the proposed mass shooting. Cox and Zerbe refused, and escaped, never to see Fulton again.

Suspecting foul play by the FBI and local police, and fearing for their lives from Fulton, Schaeffer Cox and his wife went to the military police station on Ft. Wainwright for help. Officers there advised Schaeffer Cox that federal agents had come into the station and bragged of how they planned to “fix the Schaeffer Cox problem” by “going into his home to take out his kid, then just shoot Schaeffer Cox in the process.” The MP’s gave Schaeffer Cox’s attorney affidavits to this effect and would later testify to the same under oath.

At FBI Special Agent Klein’s direction, Fulton made a third attempt to get Schaeffer Cox to do a mass shooting. Fulton did this by issuing a death threat ultimatum and promising to kill Schaeffer Cox himself if he refused the proposal of violence again.

Fearing for their lives, the Cox family packed up and headed for Canada. But the FBI sent another undercover provocateur, RJ Olson, after them, court documents say. Olson, a self described “drug wholesaler” working under the supervision of FBI Special Agent Richard Southerland, held the whole Cox family, including a 2 year old boy and a 3 week old baby girl, hostage, against their will in the attic for 21 days after sabotaging their vehicle, then using death threats from Fulton and a made up story about a truck driver to keep them from leaving.

“The government does not dispute the fact that the actions of the provocateurs working under the FBI’s supervision did in fact meet the legal definition of 1st degree kidnapping,” said Robert John, the Fairbanks attorney who got all related state charges against Cox thrown out.

On March 10th, 2011 Schaeffer Cox was taken from the attic to a deserted industrial lot in Fairbanks where he believed he would meet the “truck driver” Olson had promised. No such truck driver existed. Instead, there was a FBI ambush of out of town agents who did not know Schaeffer Cox was a well respected local political voice with popular support. The Agent’s, who had been instructed to shoot Schaeffer Cox on site if he had a weapon, were not advised by the local FBI case agent of Cox’s repeated statements about being like Ghandi not Rambo.

FBI Special Agent Richard Southerland supplied JR Olson with an unregistered, nontraceable pistol and instructed him to “put it in Schaeffer’s lap then get under the truck so there will be some thick metal between you and him when the shooting starts.” The FBI’s plan was interrupted when the owner of the industrial lot happened upon the scene and started asking questions about why men with masks and machine guns were hiding around the corner.

Schaeffer Cox was arrested and put on trial for “conspiracy against the government.” The prosecution was led by Steve Skrocki and Joseph Botini, the same people that were held in contempt of court for hiding evidence in several related trials of Alaska political personalities. The audio recording of Schaeffer Cox repeatedly rejecting violence were hidden from the jury, but are now being made available to the public by Schaeffer Cox’s supporters via YouTube and other means.

Steve Skrocki, who has publically attacked Schaeffer Cox for his belief in Moral Higher Law, built his case primarily on the testimony of Fulton and Olson. Recently released audio recording and email between Steve Skrocki and his boss, US Attorney Karen Loeffler, now show that Skrocki coached his witnesses to lie, then vouched for those lies in his closing arguments to the jury.

Still others have taken issue with Skrocki’s entire theory of the case. “The importance of this case is significant to the whole of humanity” says Larry Pratt, president of Gun Owners of America. He points out that the prosecution conceded that Cox had no actual plans for violence, but convicted him anyway based on Cox’s belief that “We The People” may someday have to stand down an out of control government.

Schaeffer Cox, who has been in prison since 2011 agrees. “This amounts to sending people to prison for simply believing in the original meaning of the 2nd Amendment” he says. “If we don’t reverse my conviction, it will set a sweeping new precedent allowing for the wholesale round up of those who have not committed any crimes.”

Schaeffer Cox Presents His Case to the Public from Prison

And here is the story told by Schaeffer Cox himself, from a letter written from prison (some excerpts already quoted above – here is the rest of the letter):

I pointed out that that sort of heavy handed disregard for their basic obligations costs the government their stability at home and their credibility abroad.

I enjoyed campaigning very much and continued to do so after the election, with my eye on the next.

My message was well received by the people and local government. It was resented by the powerful and highly secretive Federal Agencies of the Executive Branch.

I traveled and gave speeches to crowds that continued to grow in size. I warned that the Federal Government’s current behavior was unsustainable, that they were quickly running out of credit and credibility on the world stage, and that if they did not come under sensible behavioral norms soon, they would lose their position of preeminence.

At that point, I contended, that the responsibility would fall back on to our shoulders as the people who had created this Government and let it run off its rails.

The solution however was simple: Pick up the pieces and put things back together, and this time follow the Constitution that had served us well for hundreds of years. My message was simple, follow the Constitution, I encouraged the people to be faithful in the civic duties the Constitution placed on them. While there were many of these, the one that got the most media attention was the Militia.

The U.S. Constitution requires all able-bodied males to be prepared to serve locally in times of trouble. This concept was somewhat outdated and largely neglected in America at the time. But if we were going to ask the government to follow the Constitution we needed to be willing to follow it ourselves or else be hypocrites. This Militia was not a group, properly speaking, so much as a cultural obligation to make a good faith pledge of your willingness to personally contribute to the safety and wellbeing of the people around you if needed.

The Feds, being offended by my open criticism of their self-destructive habits, searched high and low for a reason to arrest me.

But none could be found. I was an honest man. I paid my taxes. I did right by people in business. I followed the law.

So they decided to try inducement. The FBI hired loals(moles *) to try to talk me into committing a crime. These hired provocateurs, many of whom had criminal pasts, started to come to me and argue that I was doing things all wrong. What I needed to do, they said, was use my influence to organize a violent attack on the government. I did not welcome the suggestion. I stayed away from those people and advised others to do the same. While I was critical of the government’s conduct, that criticism was for its own good. Using my influence to encourage a violent attack on the government would only destroy the peace and stability that I was ultimately trying to preserve.

After several months of unsuccessful attempts by the provocateurs to change my mind, the Feds decided to kick it up a notch. The(y) knew how much I love my wife and children So they devised a way to attempt to exploit that as a weakness.

What they did next is perhaps the morally reprehensible aspect of this whole ordeal. It was so bad, in fact, that the Military Police from a nearby base ended up intervening to help me and my family. This is difficult for me to write about. It makes me angry and heartbroken at the same time. But throughout it all I didn’t cave in to their pressure. Of that I stand proud.

In the spring of 2010 I was charged with a recklessness misdemeanor related to an argument that involved my wife and her mother. That charge was resolved 3 days later. The following week I was charged with a minor weapon’s offence that would be dismissed completely over a year later, followed by a complaint by the Feds that my wife and I were neglecting our 1 1/2 year old son Seth. At this time not only are my wife and I loving and good parents but we are licensed by the government as foster parents.

So the Office of Child Protective Services knows us and knows we are good people and has even certified us as good parents.

Courts had placed troubled children in our care during legal proceedings and so forth before we had children of our own.

As a result of my wife and I volunteering in this way, we were very familiar with the policies of the Office of Children’s Services, or “OCS.” So when there was a knock at the door one morning and I was told that OCS was there to take Seth Cox into their custody, I knew something was wrong. I called my attorney Robert John and asked him what to do. He called me back a few minutes later and told me to come directly to his office.

When we arrived with our toddler son he told my wife and I that a judge had signed a use of force warrant to storm our home with a SWAT Team: This was not the normal procedure and he found it quite frightening, as did we. Robert John made several calls to the court as well as to OCS but was unable to get an answer as to why policies were not being followed or why an authorization of police violence was issued. He did however get a judge to put a hold on the order for one week.

That week our lives were turned into a horrifying nightmare that has not ended yet, I got a call from the pastor of a local church who told me that the FBI had questioned him about me, which he thought was suspicious. Also that week I got a call from a friend who works for the electric company. He informed me that the FBI had stopped by their office to tell them to not let their maintenance crews go near my home because it was an “unsafe residence” and that I was a “terrorist.”

Lucky for me, because of the type of business I was in most of the maintenance crews and other employees there knew me and knew nothing could be further from the truth. However, hearing such reports at the same time our baby son was being targeted was extremely frightening for me and my wife.

We knew there was foul play somewhere but we didn’t know what to do. At that time I was contacted by one of the locally hired provocateurs named Aaron Bennett who had months prior tried to talk me into using my influence to get people to attack the government. At this point I had no idea he was working for the government.

I just thought he was a violent trouble causer to be avoided. But now he was coming to me. “See: I told you so!” he said. “They are attacking your children now. That’s a line in the sand we can’t let them cross. If they do anything to you I’m going to attack them,” he told me. Once again I rejected his premise and told him there were much better ways to deal with this.

But his comments worried me, so I called a friend named Norm Olson and asked him what I should do. He gave me the number of a police detective named Rex Leath, and told me to report what had happened to him. I did so shortly thereafter.

My wife and I had moved out of our home for fear of being surprise attacked in the night or something before we could sort this all out. As we were scrambling to resolve the matter through our attorney, a second provocateur, one I was not familiar with, traveled from out of town to see me.

This guy’s name was Bill Fulton. He was by far the most aggressive of the bunch. He asked me to meet him at a store in Fairbanks called Blondies. I wasn’t sure what for. So I asked my 47-year-old friend Les Zerbe to go with me. I happened to have my son with me at the time.

When Les Zerbe and I arrived we were in sharp contrast to the motley crew that met us. I was a clean-cut 60kg business man in slacks and a sweater. Les was a white haired gentleman who carried himself with a dignity that was fitting to his years. We were met by a group of no less than 8 intimidating big thugs led by Fulton and Bennett.

They started in immediately, telling us how the government had crossed a line by attacking our children and that they were ready to go attack the government over it. They went on to say that all they needed was for me to make a plan, then use my name to draw public support. Bill Fulton said he had already spent thousands of dollars to come to Fairbanks prepared to do battle with the government.

Now before I feel too bashful for even being present for this kind of crazy talk, let me remind you that all of this nonsense is coming from the government. None of this was born in my mind and Les Zerbe and I didn’t know what this meeting was about before we showed up. It was more or less an ambush. With that said, let us continue.

Fulton and Bennett proceeded to push for violence and insisted that I must make a plan. When Les and I told them plainly that we wouldn’t do anything of the sort, now or ever, Fulton lunged at Les with a knife and held it to his throat. He then looked at me and told me he was going to “slit Les’ throat” if I didn’t agree to go on a violent rampage like he wanted me to. I tried the best I could to calm him down and he eventually did let go of Les. We got out of there post haste, and I never saw Fulton or Bennett again.

I was terrified: Not only was the government going after my child but now these guys were saying they were going to kill me for refusing to commit a crime.

Having gotten no help at all from detective Max Leath when we had reported this sort of stuff to him earlier, my wife and I decided to tell another Police Officer, one we knew personally and who lived in our area. His name was Ron Wall.

That evening my wife and I stopped by his house. He invited us in and we talked around the kitchen table. I told him I knew we had our political differences but there were some crazy and violent trouble causers he needed to look into. At the time I did not know that those crazy violent trouble causers were in fact provocateurs working for him!

I don’t know whether to be embarrassed by my own naivety or angry at their outrageously unethical practices. But at the end of the day I was just trying to do the right thing. Ron Wall brushed us off and did nothing to help. It makes sense now, but at the time I thought he just didn’t take us seriously.

Meanwhile our attorney Robert John was trying to work things out with OCS. Normal policy dictates that when a complaint of child neglect is made that a social worker review the case and interview the family. This is what we wanted to have happen, not an assault team with machine guns kicking in our doors at night!

Robert John tried to arrange an interview so we could resolve this through normal channels but was met with refusals at all levels. The thought did cross my mind that the Feds could be behind this. But the idea of attacking innocent children to get to your political critics was so awful that I thought even the Feds wouldn’t stoop that low. I was wrong. And I was about to find out just how wrong I was!

Having gotten nowhere talking to local police, we decided to ask the Military Police if they could help. My wife and I drove on to the Army Post, walked to the front door of the Police Station [and asked to speak to whoever was in charge. We spoke to Maj. Greenleaf and others. We told them everything that was going on.

They looked at us as if we were crazy and said they would call us back. They showed us to the door and we felt we had been slighted again.

But the next day we got a call from an MP at the station who asked to meet with us. My wife and I met him in a park and talked for several hours.

What he told us made our blood run cold. He said that minutes after we left, the FBI had stormed in their station and demanded their video surveillance footage.

There was some back and forth that went clear to Washington, D.C. because the MP’s initially refused to surrender the footage to the FBI.

While all of this was going on this young MP named Stephen Gibson, who was talking to us, had asked an FBI agent what all the fuss was about and who was this Schaeffer Cox guy?

The FBI agent told MP Gibson that Schaeffer Cox (that’s me) had been doing lots of different things and they had wanted me for a few years but “he hadn’t done anything illegal but that didn’t matter now because we are going after his son and when we try to take him we think that will be sufficient to elicit a display of force at which point we will shoot him and that will put an end to our Schaeffer Cox problems.”

Our hearts sank. My wife turned pale. It is a horrifying thing when a police officer takes you aside and tells you federal Agents are planning to kill you.

What can you do at that point?

I felt completely exposed and unsafe. Everything became fearful and deep down I started to panic. It all seemed too far-fetched to be real, but there we were in the middle of it. I could no longer sleep at night and I was constantly on edge.

I went to the media and told everyone who would listen about what was going on. It didn’t help. I made some blustery tough guy comments I would later regret but all in all I did all right considering the pressure I was under.

At the end of the week we went to court with our attorney Robert John to sort out the use of force warrant for our son. The courtroom was filled with our family and friends and supporters.

I told the judge everything that was going on and pleaded with him to be reasonable and de-escalate things. I told him about the Feds, about the crazy violent trouble causers. I stated for the record my opposition to any sort of foolishness that could lead to bloodshed.

I was frazzled and exhausted and at a loss for what to do. And this, being threatened and terrorized, is what I got for refusing to commit a crime when pushed by undercover agents to do so.

After the social worker from OCS, who was in the courtroom, heard what I said I think she realized she had been used as a pawn by the FBI. She agreed to do an interview and follow the normal policies.

My wife and I were relieved. OCS did a full investigation and found the accusation of child neglect to be completely unfounded and closed the case. We felt like we had dodged a bullet. But who were these Federal Agents out to kill us? And what were we to do about these crazy violent trouble causers? (Also Agents!)

Six months of relative calm passed. I tended to business while Marti was pregnant with our second child. In February of 2011 the Feds would launch one more underhanded assault on our family.

I was due in court over a weapon’s charge that was ultimately dismissed completely. But even if I had been guilty it would have been little more than a fine of a few hundred dollars. None the less, the FBI saw it as another opportunity to try to bully me into committing a crime.

The FBI offered $350,000.00 to whoever could get me to commit a crime that resulted in a conviction. They sent in a completely new provocateur named J.R. Olson. He was far more subtle but trouble none the less. He hung around whenever he got the chance but didn’t say much at first. That changed as my February 14th court date approached. To add to the emotional charge of the situation, my first daughter was born on February 5th.

When I held my little baby girl in my arms for the first time and looked into her deep blue eyes nothing else mattered to me any more. All I wanted was to be with my family and be safe. Politics was no longer worth the trouble it caused me and my family.

The next day J.R. Olson tracked me down at a Superbowl party to deliver a message from Bill Fulton, the knife wielding thug and provocateur from Blondies. I was afraid for my life from Fulton and would not go near him, so he had to send his threats by someone else.

J.R. Olson told me that Fulton’s patience was running out and that if I continued to refuse to join him, Fulton was going to kill me and start a fight with the government himself. Fulton further declared that if I lost in court on Monday or if I turned myself in he would start killing people.

I panicked at that point. I told my wife that we needed to leave the country because our lives were in danger.

She agreed and that night we packed what little we could and drove toward Canada. We stopped for the night at a friend’s house about 100km outside of town.

Of course the FBI had followed us and the next morning before we could leave, J.R. Olson showed up. Not knowing he worked for the FBI I told him I was leaving the country with my family.

He told me that there was an arrest warrant for me now that I hadn’t shown up for court. He told me Fulton was serious about killing people and that if I was stopped at the border it would surely set things off. I didn’t want that to happen. Again let me remind you that Fulton and Olson are both FBI and this whole sick nightmare is being created by them.

Now I had to figure out a way to get out of the country without getting caught and thus setting off these crazy violent trouble causers.

My family and I move a few kilometers to some different friends home that was a more kid friendly environment.

The FBI was in a panic because I was about to leave the country without committing a crime and they would lose me forever. So they had J.R. Olson call a handful of people and tell them I had called a meeting.

Of course I had done no such thing. But that didn’t matter. That morning, February 19th, the FBI told J.R. Olson that he had to get me to agree on a specific plan of how to attack the government.

The FBI was very specific in their instructions to him. FBI Agents Southerand, Westerhaus and Alaska State Trooper Thompson had even gone so far as to write up an affidavit in support of a warrant in advance.

It laid out in great detail the criminal activity they were planning to have us do. Of course none of the highly detailed events attested to in the affidavit had happened yet.

This wouldn’t have been a problem for them if they had succeeded in getting us to plot a crime. But they failed to get us to do anything illegal and just made me that much more frantic to get out of the country.

Where Detective Thompson really screwed up was when he went down to the courthouse first thing in the morning on February 19th and filed his affidavit, which gave it a date/time stamp that was several hours BEFORE the very meeting it was describing even took place: This meeting the FBI had orchestrated didn’t go how they wanted at all. All we talked about was how we were afraid for our lives from Fulton and Bennett and how to safely get me out of the country.

As a last ditch effort to keep me from getting away without even having committed a crime the FBI had J.R. Olson tell me he could arrange our safe passage to Canada through a friend of his who was a truck driver. There was no truck driver. It was all just a ruse to keep us from leaving. The fictitious trucker was “delayed” for several different made-up reasons and 3 days stretched into 3 weeks.

Over the course of these 3 weeks my wife, 2 children and I were hiding in the upper room of my friend, Coleman Barney’s home. J.R. Olson stopped by several times to try to talk me into adopting Fulton’s retaliatory plan called “241.”

He tried to convince me to make a “hit list.” But I still insisted on leaving the country. I told him over and over that “nothing good would come of that” and that “I was going to pull a Gandhi, NOT a Rambo.”

J.R. Olson was wearing a wire and these inter-actions were recorded. But in the end that wouldn’t matter because the judge wouldn’t let them be played at trial. But we still have them. When the FBI felt they could hold us no longer, J.R. Olson called to tell me the “trucker” had arrived and was ready to haul me and my family out of the country.

Coleman Barney and I drove to the town where we met J.R. Olson. Olson had us get in his pick-up so he could take us to meet the “trucker.”

But instead of a trucker waiting to take us to safety there was an FBI ambush waiting to take us to jail. J.R. Olson had been instructed to crawl under his pick-up so he wouldn’t accidently be shot by the FBI’s “take down” team. And the “take down” team had been advised that I had given orders to “shoot police on sight before even determining the reason for the interaction.”

This was a total lie and I believe it was intended to incite the “take down” team to kill me. What may well have saved my life and left the FBI trying to figure out how to prosecute this crazy case was that the man who owned the parking lot where all this went on happened to show up and walked into the middle of it all and wanted to know what was going on.

At that point J.R. Olson told him we were there to meet a truck driver. The property owner started to ask questions and the FBI bum rushed all of us at gunpoint. That was March 10th, 2011.

What followed was dozens upon dozens of press releases from the U.S. Attorney’s Office claiming that the Schaeffer Cox everyone thought they knew and loved was in fact secretly a monster and the courageous FBI had rescued everyone just in the nick of time. If you do your research you will doubtless come across these articles.

They are not true and the actual evidence confirms the story that I have just told you. So please disregard them. And remember, in America the press prints what the government tells them to and that is that.

So off to jail I went. My bail was set at 3 million dollars cash only.

On the same day I was arrested the FBI arrested half a dozen of my friends, some of whom I hadn’t even seen for several months. They also raided all of our homes simultaneously.

The masked agents that stormed our homes broke windows and doors and traumatized our wives and children at gunpoint. They completely ransacked everyone’s homes.

Then they went to all of my rental real estate, threw my tenants out on the street, took anything of value and trashed everything left in the house or apartment.

The only effect this had was to disrupt my main source of passive income. My wife was too shook up to put things back together and we lost all of our investment properties.

A few months later my wife would sell our house to pay attorney bills. She is now bankrupt, without a home and struggling to provide for our children.

It took over a year to get a trial. The government could see that the evidence was going to contradict the story they had been pumping to the press.

But they can easily get around the facts when they want to. The first thing they tried was offering to drop the charges on whoever was willing to testify against me and let them out of jail. But no one was willing to lie on the stand to get let go.

The FBI bullied witnesses all over town. They told the MP’s that if they testified at trial they would get them fired. When my father tried to help me pay attorney bills the Feds hit him with a tax audit.

They released my friend Mike Anderson from jail then stormed his house and threw him back in jail a few weeks later after his attorney told the Feds that he wouldn’t lie in front of a grand jury.

As Traverso, my attorney for the Federal charges, investigated the case further he became more and more scared of the Feds we were dealing with. A few months before trial the Feds moved the trial almost 1,000km away to Anchorage. I no longer had easy access to my attorney.

We were running out of money and I would now have to fly all of our witnesses down and pay for hotels and meals. I just didn’t have the money to do this.

Things took a turn for the worst during the trial when my attorney Nelson Traverso refused to present our defense. When I demanded that he do so he hissed back “I’m not going to present anything that will be embarrassing for the government!! If I do, they will just come after me too!!”

The attorney who was representing Coleman Barney was not as cowardly. He agreed to present the audio recordings for me. But the final blow was dealt when the judge refused to allow them to be played.

The prosecution did eventually admit that I had indeed refused to commit a crime and that I had in fact said repeatedly that I was going to be like Gandhi.

But they argued that that didn’t matter because the only reason I had refused to commit a crime was because I didn’t have the capability to. They argued that if some time several years in the future I was to become strong enough to beat the government in a fight I would change my mind.

I was convicted of conspiring against the Government and scheduled to be sentenced several months later.

My cowardly attorney Nelson Traverso withdrew from the case and I was appointed a public defender from Seattle, Washington named Peter Camiel. Also at this time we ran out of money and could no longer pay our investigator, Rolly Port.

While he did good work and probably understands this case better than anyone else, he dropped us like a hot rock the second we ran out of money. He wouldn’t even speak to my new attorney.

By this point I was numb with shock. I had lost 12kg and had PTSD. I was transferred to a prison in Seattle for a few months where I was able to meet with my new attorney, Peter Camiel. He reviewed all the evidence and was diligent and studious in his work.

I liked him. He sat me down and gave it to me straight. “The Federal Sentencing Guidelines put you at a life sentence and there’s no question about it,” he said.

“Now I’ve gone over all the evidence and I know you are innocent. Okay, I know that. But that doesn’t matter. I’m here to do everything I can to get you less than life. That’s all we can do. But if you go in there and tell the judge that you are innocent and that the government did wrong in this case, EVEN THOUGH IT’S TRUE, if you say that you will get a sentencing enhancement for refusing to accept responsibility for your”crime” and you will get an even longer sentence than the one you’ve got coming. The only other thing we can do is see if we can get a doctor to say that you were crazy during the time leading up to your arrest. That could be a reason for the judge to not give you life.”

I hated this! It was wrong! I WAS innocent! The government HAD done wrong! I wasn’t crazy. I reacted how any normal honest person would in such as situation. The FBI were the crazy ones for what they did to me! I pounded my fist on the desk in frustration and righteous indignation.

Peter looked across the desk into my eyes. He spoke with the helpless compassion that an older man feels for a young man being forced to lay down his ideals.

“Schaeffer, everything you just said is right. And you can go to sentencing and say it. And you will get 10 or 20 years more. If that’s what you feel you must do I will understand and I won’t fault you for it. But I’m just trying to get you to at least meet your children someday.”

That is when they beat me. That is when I laid down my soul. I knew he was right. I felt utterly helpless. I was no longer a man. I was a crushed prisoner. I was no longer Schaeffer Cox, I was 16179006.

I thought of my wife, of the day I met her. I thought of my son, of his little head on my chest as I read him bedtime stories, of my daughter who did not know her daddy. I wept bitter tears as my humility slipped away. “Do whatever you think is best,” I said in quiet defeat.

A few weeks later a forensic psychologist came to evaluate me. She was a short frumpy woman with frizzy hair, beady eyes and mismatched clothes. She never looked at me in the eyes. She sat typing on her laptop and asked me boilerplate questions until her time was up and she scurried away.

She submitted a report to the court saying that I was all kinds of crazy, that my political opinions could only be the result of mental illness and that I therefore should not be held liable for them. What effect her report had on my sentence is difficult to say. But it left me completely humiliated.

By the time I was to be sentenced finally arrived, the judge had received hundreds of letters from people all over the country, most of whom knew me personally.

They uniformly condemned the prosecution and attested to my true character as a man who was not even capable of the sort of things I was accused of.

The judge was visibly upset by the letters. He took the bench and scolded the packed gallery. “This case isn’t about shutting someone up! Mr. Cox is guilty of a crime!” he bellowed. Though he could not, with any specificity, point to what exactly this “crime” was.

Steven Skrocki, Assistant U.S. Attorney for Alaska, argued for the government. He claimed I needed a long sentence because my problem was my religious and political beliefs and I could not be “rehabilitated” from that.

The judge gave what may have been the most honest summary of the whole case just before he handed down my sentence.

He said, “Mr. Cox is deserving of a lengthy prison sentence because so many people listen to him.”

Then he gave me 26 years in prison and took an early lunch.

It wasn’t life but it was enough to effectively orphan my children and widow my wife. I was stuck in a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. But it was about to get worse.

I was put in solitary confinement for months and eventually transferred to a secret prison for political prisoners in Marion, Illinois. It is a prison within a prison. It is called the Communications Management Unit, or CMU. CMU prisoners’ contact with the outside world is extremely limited and tightly controlled.

I am allowed to talk to my wife by phone 30 minutes a week and we are only allowed to talk about preapproved topics. If I tell her anything that goes on in the CMU or who else is in here I will no longer be allowed even the little contact we do have.

The only way out of the CMU is to renounce your beliefs and demonstrate a willingness not to talk to the media. I guess Skrocki was wrong. You CAN be “rehabilitated” from what you believe. It just takes 20 years in the CMU.

The prisoners who are defiant are sent to “The Hole.” It is a bare 3m x 3.5m concrete room. The temperature is 40°C. You sit and sweat in solitude for months or even years with no human contact.

I am taking a great risk to send this letter to you. When it becomes known I may be shackled and sent to the hole for the rest of my time. But it is a risk I am willing to take, not for me but for my children.

Official policy does not sanction the sort of things that go on here, but there is a huge difference between policy and practice these days. I have a few months left to appeal my conviction.

But since I am not allowed to speak with my attorney that deadline is likely to come and go uneventfully. My conviction will be upheld and the nightmare will continue.

There is very little anyone can do. People who have tried to help me have been harassed and intimidated by the FBI. Even my father who loves me and is very close to me is too scared to talk to me because the FBI is bullying and intimidating him.

Let me share some insight into the thought process of contemporary American government.

A prominent characteristic of Federal Bureaucrats is that they only listen to each other. Any outside opinion or perspective is dismissed and labeled as “from the enemy” no matter how well meaning it may be.

As a result, the circle of influence and the pool from which advice is drawn becomes smaller and smaller. Eventually this intellectual inbreeding produces an entire class of government elite who are running around doing absolutely horrible*

Read more about Schaeffer Cox at freeschaeffer.com

Supporters of Schaeffer Cox have asked that the public write to the judge who will hear Schaeffer’s appeal on August 16th:

Office of the Clerk
James R. Browning Courthouse
U.S. Court of Appeals
P.O. Box 193939
San Francisco, CA
94119-3939

There are suggested templates here: https://yearofjubile.com/cox

Also, the oral arguments will be live streamed on August 16th, and people may want to tune in and watch it: