Anti-Government Protester Ruled Fit to Stand Trial on Forgery Charges

Who is Timothy Paul Kootenay?

Is he a dangerous and militant anti-government protester who financed a small semiautomatic weapons business out of his Newbury Park home with fraudulent money orders, as a Ventura County prosecutor alleges?

Or is he a kindly but timid and impressionable 35-year-old tree trimmer who fell victim to the twisted logic of the so-called patriot movement, as his defense attorney and friends maintain?

A judge was presented with both opinions Tuesday as lawyers argued over adjusting bail for the accused forger and whether he was mentally competent to stand trial. He is being held on $25,000 bail.

“He is somewhat of a plastic person,” Superior Court Judge Steven Z. Perren said of Kootenay during the morning-long hearing--appearing to side with the view that Kootenay is more a mixed-up man than a violent political reactionary. Nonetheless, Perren ruled that Kootenay is sane enough to understand the crimes he is accused of and should stand trial.

Kootenay’s attorney, Neil B. Quinn, admits that his client bought six semiautomatic rifles with two bogus money orders totaling more than $5,200 in 1994. Kootenay, who held a federal gun selling license at the time, bought the phony money orders from an Appleton, Wis., anti-government group that contends that U.S. currency is illegal.

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But Quinn said his client and family are working to repay a gun dealer in Oklahoma City, Okla., and that Kootenay’s legal problems--his first serious brush with the law--are nothing more than a “bad check case,” which usually results in sentences of probation as long as restitution is made.

And while Perren put off until Monday making a decision on Kootenay’s bail, he said the man’s efforts to pay back what he owes will weigh heavily at that hearing.

“If the court is relatively satisfied that restitution is being made, then the setting of bail will reflect that,” Perren said. But Ventura County Deputy Dist. Atty. Mark Aveis was accompanied to court by two Secret Service agents, one carrying a cardboard rifle box like the type used to deliver weapons to Kootenay’s home, and he argued against setting Kootenay free on his own recognizance pending trial. Aveis said he may argue to increase Kootenay’s bail at Monday’s hearing.

“I am arguing that he is a flight risk and a danger to the community,” Aveis said. “He is a self-proclaimed member of an extremist group.”

During a grand jury investigation into Kootenay’s activities, he ignored a subpoena and traveled to Montana.

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Grand jury transcripts show that Kootenay frequently had semiautomatic rifles delivered to his home, which was legal, while at the same time he espoused militant anti-government views.

When he was cited in Thousand Oaks for riding a motorcycle without a helmet two years ago, Kootenay mailed judges and other court officials involved with the case volumes of misspelled missives explaining his anti-government views.

“I don’t believe he is being made a scapegoat for anything,” Aveis said. “He’s the one who issued the bogus money orders and he’s the one who fled Ventura County.”

But Kootenay had his own supporters in court Tuesday, including his mother and two friends who maintain that Kootenay has been unfairly linked to the sort of “Freemen” who are holed up in Montana and other extremist groups making headlines. They describe Kootenay as a shy loner with fervent religious and political beliefs who has been exploited by leaders of the patriot movement, several of whom are now in federal custody facing forgery and fraud charges of their own.

“Mr. Kootenay is really a victim here,” Quinn said.

Perren scheduled Tuesday’s sanity hearing last month after jail officials reported that Kootenay tried, albeit feebly, to hang himself in jail with a bedsheet. Quinn conceded that his client “had problems adjusting to jail” but agreed that he is mentally able to stand trial.

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Kootenay has been in jail since his arrest in Montana in April and has pleaded not guilty to the eight felony charges of forgery and fraud. The Ventura County Grand Jury indicted Kootenay the month before after investigators from the Secret Service, Postal Service and the district attorney’s office testified that the Newbury Park tree trimmer allegedly bought the money orders from a Wisconsin-based militant anti-government group called the Family Farm Preservation, which published a document titled “$-O-$, $hift of $trategyc,” grand jury transcripts show.

Quinn contends that the group and its anti-government preaching exploited Kootenay’s extreme religious and political views. He also took exception Tuesday to Secret Service agents showing up with a rifle box, saying the move was meant to “inflame the passions of the court.” Quinn said Kootenay is a staunch anti-government proponent who firmly believed in Family Farm Preservation’s philosophy, which holds that the only true currencies are coins of silver and gold. The two leaders of this group have since been charged in federal court with forgery and fraud, officials said.

One of the leaders, the Rev. Thomas Stockheimer has billed himself as the “Mortgage Breaking Preacher,” according to grand jury transcripts. Federal investigators testified that Stockheimer and his organization charged between $50 and $500 for copies of the tract, which maintains that paper currency is illegal and instructs readers on how to use allegedly counterfeit money orders prepared by the group.