seattlepi.com
Federal prosecutors were prepared to arraign Tuesday an alleged member of the "Patriot Movement" accused of helping to hide a fugitive at his Tenino home.
Todd Gehman Howard, 47, was arrested last week on suspicion of hiding federal fugitive Lewis Vincent Hughes at his home. Hughes is wanted in connection to a bank and mail fraud prosecution filed in North Carolina.
Earlier efforts to arraign Howard at the U.S. District Court in Tacoma were unsuccessful, a U.S. Attorney's Office spokeswoman said, because Howard continued to interrupt the magistrate judge handling the proceeding.
According to prosecutors, Howard told Thurston County sheriff's deputies that he was a member of the Patriot Movement, a catchall term for militants opposed to the federal government. They also allege that Howard has ties to the "Sovereign Citizen" movement.
Another alleged adherent to the Sovereign Citizen ideology, Snohomish resident Andrew Steven Gray, was indicted earlier this month on gun and drug charges. Federal prosecutors contend that Gray, a convicted felon, was growing more than 400 marijuana plants and had amassed a cache of weapons including a fully automatic assault rifle and several silencers.
Howard is scheduled to be arraigned at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Tacoma court. He is charged with concealing a person from arrest and making a false statement to police.
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