FBI Reportedly Serves Search Warrant With ‘Freemen’ Link

The FBI served two search warrants at a hotel in north Los Angeles County on Tuesday, reportedly linked to the agency’s investigation of the militant “freemen” group in Montana.

John Hoos, an FBI spokesman in Los Angeles, would neither confirm nor deny its raid in the high desert city, 50 miles to the north. But KCBS-TV reported agents executed a search warrant somehow linked to the delicate standoff at a ranch near the Montana town of Jordan.

A lawyer for the Essex House hotel said agents actually served two search warrants, one at 7 a.m. and one at about 12:30 p.m. Attorney Dawn Reichman said the FBI searched two hotel rooms and one meeting area.

She said she did not know anything more about the searches, and employees at the hotel declined to give other details.

In Montana, federal agents captured two leaders of the militant, anti-government group known as “freemen” and then edged in closer Tuesday to the group’s remote compound, trying to persuade other fugitives to surrender.

The organization’s leaders, LeRoy Schweitzer and Daniel Peterson Jr., were supposed to be arraigned Tuesday afternoon. But they created a ruckus in the courtroom with their yelling, prompting the judge to postpone the arraignment until arrangements are made so the men cannot disturb the proceedings.

The freemen group denies the legitimacy of the government. Members call their compound, a cluster of houses and other buildings on a 960-acre wheat farm, “Justus Township” and insist they have their own laws and their own courts. Neighbors say they are heavily armed.

The farm 30 miles northwest of Jordan was sold at a foreclosure auction in October, and the new owners have grown impatient to take possession as spring planting time approaches.