It's been a hell of a week!, er WEEKS, MONTHS! VERY OT

From: Joe R. <rigdonj_at_cfl.rr.com>
Date: Thu Feb 3 13:22:09 2005

Hey All,

   You've probably notices that I haven't been around much lately and I'm
WAY behind of answering E-mail, phone calls, shipping stuff, etc etc etc.
Now I can tell you why.

  A close friend's home was raided by the local sheriff's department and
ATF late last year and he was arrested for "possesion of SIXTEEN
unregistered machine guns". At least, that's what the ATF told the local
news people. I've been working closely with him ever since to help defend
him and I'm trilled to report that we went to court last Monday (Jan 31)
and successfully beat the ATF 3 to zip in the Orlando Federal Court! And
I'm PROUD to stay that I provided a lot of the arguments and evidence that
was used in the case. It's a LONG story but I'll try to keep it short.
Basicly, the ATF took 16 guns from him and told everyone that he had 16
unregisteded machine guns. They charged him with possesion of two MGs. Then
later changed it to 2 machine guns, a short barreled rifle and a "any other
weapon" (AOW) for possesion of a small pistol and a wallet shaped holster.
The SB rifle charge was based on them finding a legal semi-automatic pistol
and loose stock in his home. ATF claimed that the stock fit the pistol and
that the combination constituted a SB rifle even if they were not connected
together. Later the ATF dropped one MG charge then later dropped the other.
I started getting involved full time a few weeks ago. The first time that I
meet his lawyer, he said that ATF claimed that one semi-auto pistol that
they found was a machine gun (in addition to the SB rifle and AOW) and
offered a not-too-attrative plea bargain and the lawyer was recommending
that he take it. After much argument I was able to convince him that that
was physically impossible that the gun in question was a MG and he went
back and disputed the ATF's claim so that dropped that claim but still
claimed that it was a SB rifle. They offered a "better" plea but my fiend
still refused to accept it. The NEXT day (Thursday), the judge himself
called a meeting and clearly indicated that he would only give my friend
probation if he agreed to the plea bargain. Again my friend refused so
trial was set for the following Monday. WE WERE GIVEN LESS THAN A WEEK TO
PREPARE! At the same meeting, ATF finally agreed to let us examine the guns
in question the next morning (Friday). I was supposed to go examine them
but at the last moment the ATF allowed only my friend and his lawyer to see
them. The guns were sealed and they were not allowed to disassemble them or
to even pick them up. However without the ATF's and procescuter's
knowledge, I had managed to locate an identical gun and build an air tight
argument about why a stock could NOT be mounted the way that ATF claimed. I
also found that the definition of "any other weapon" in the NFA specificly
excluded "derrigners and pistols with rifled bores". One the day of trial,
we used both arguments to successfully beat the ATF. However the ATF then
brought a third charge that was not in any indictment and had not been
presented at any of the several arrainments. They now claimed that
posssesion of a screw on fake barrel that was also found in his home and
the same pistol constituted an "any other weapon" becuase it now had two
grips!!! . However we had been all over the "AOW" definition in the NFA
because of the pistol/wallet holster and it clearly doesn't say anything
about two-handled pistols so we were able to beat that one as well. We were
able to present our arguments in about one hour and the jury deliberated
for an hour and a half and found him innocent of all charges!!! I'm sure
many of you have noticed by now that I'm a staunch supporter of the 2nd
Amendment and I'm PROUD to have helped in this case. I've been ignoring
everything else and been working 15 hours a day preparing for this trial
and I'm happy to be able to say we soundly whipped them!

   BUT WAIT! It's not over! That was only Monday.

   Monday night we were out celebrating and I got a call from an ex
coworker. It turns out that due to illness and old age that he and his wife
were moving out of their house and moving into an assisted living facility
and he had to get rid of a LOT of stuff. This guy is a serious computer
buff and he worked outside of Boston in the mid '70s and bought a lot of
the early computers. This is the guy that I got one of my Altairs and it's
disk drive from. I also bought my National Semiconductor Pacer and the
Alpha Micro 100 computers from him. I was at his house early the next
morning and here's what I got:

 (1) three complete Apple Lisas with Profile hard drives.
 (2) Guts for another Lisa.
 (3) Ohio Scientific Challanger in a travel case
 (4) SWTPC 6800 that looks absolutely brand new.
 (5) A large box of disk for the DEC Minc computer (he used to use one at
Raytheon)
 (6) Several early Apple Macintoshs including a Color Classic.
 (7) Another Zenith MiniSport computer with the 2 inch cloppy drive. with
disks.
 (8) Some original GI issue parts for the Inland M1 Carbine.
 (9) Piles of SW and docs.


  Went back yesterday (Wednesday) and got:

 (1) complete packages of LisaCalc, LisaWrite and LisaGraph for the Apple
Lisa.
 (2) Commodore Pet with chicklet keyboard and cassette drive
 (3) Box of original tapes for the Pet.
 (4) Borroughs/Concurrent 286/12 computer with CRT and keyboard and 3 power
supplies.
 (5) three boxs of OS/78 software. Possibly for the Minc.
 (6) HP 150 and 9153 hard drive


            AND!!!!!!!!

   An typewritten english translation of a German Army training manual for
the German A4 (V2) rocket!! I've never seen anything like this before,
it's over 4 inchs thick and FULL of information about the A4. The manual
was clearly written during WW-II. I think the translation was probably done
by the US Army Intellignce after the war but it doesn't say. I've got to
find out more about where he got this from.

   I was supposed to go back today but his wife is very ill and he was at
the hospital all day. I'm supposed to go back tomorrow. He still has a PILE
of KIM computers and a heap of accessories. :-)

   If this week continues at this rate I'll win the lottery before it's
over! :-) :-)

  Joe



   
Received on Thu Feb 03 2005 - 13:22:09 GMT