BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — On his website, militia leader-turned-blogger Mike Vanderboegh writes about fed-up Americans responding to government violence with guns and grenades, even deadly gas. It's an attempt to warn the government that people are armed and angry, he says, just like last year when he urged those upset with President Barack Obama's health care plan to toss bricks at Democratic Party offices.
A few people shattered office windows then, and federal prosecutors now say his online novel about a militia making war against the U.S. government inspired a group of four retirement-age men in Georgia to plot an attack on unnamed government leaders using guns, the highly deadly toxin ricin and explosives.
Vanderboegh said he doesn't know the suspects. He ridiculed the men's plans and chuckled at the notoriety he has gained for his online rants.
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"It comes with the territory," he said in an interview from his home in a Birmingham suburb. Vanderboegh hasn't been charged with any wrongdoing.
The four suspected militia members allegedly boasted of a "bucket list" of government officials who needed to be "taken out"; talked about scattering ricin from a plane or a car speeding down a highway past major U.S. cities; and scouted IRS and ATF offices, with one man saying, "We'd have to blow the whole building like Timothy McVeigh," a reference to the man executed for bombing a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.
Federal investigators said they had them under surveillance for at least seven months, infiltrating their meetings at a Waffle House, homes and other places, before finally arresting them Tuesday, just days after discovering evidence they were trying to extract ricin from castor beans.
The four gray-haired men appeared in federal court Wednesday without entering a plea. Frederick Thomas, 73; Dan Roberts, 67; Ray Adams, 65; and Samuel Crump, 68, were jailed for a bail hearing next week. They apparently had trouble hearing the judge, some of them cupping their ears.
Thomas and Roberts were charged with conspiring to buy an explosive device and an illegal silencer. It wasn't clear whether they actually made any purchases and prosecutors wouldn't comment. Adams and Crump were charged with conspiring to make a biological toxin.
Relatives of two of the men said the charges were baseless. The public defender assigned to the case had no comment.
Vanderboegh, a big man with thinning gray hair and glasses, was raised in Ohio and moved to Alabama years ago for work. He was a former Alabama Minuteman leader but said he distanced himself from the movement years ago.
He lives in Pinson, north of Birmingham, and gets by on disability payments, blogging from his modest home. He described himself and like-minded people as "Three Percenters," referring to the idea that only 3 percent of the American colonists fought against the British in the Revolutionary War.
Vanderboegh said he has never advocated violence against the government yet recognizes it's possible — even likely — if the government attacks citizens first.
"I say no more Fort Sumters. Another thing I've always hit on is, 'No Oklahoma Cities," Vanderboegh said, referring to the place where the first shots of the Civil War were fired and McVeigh's deadly bombing of a federal building in 1995.
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In the introduction to 'Absolved,' first posted in 2008, Vander]boegh writes: "If this book is to operate as a 'useful dire warning,' then both real sides in my imaginary civil war ... must be able to recognize the real threat to avoid it.
"In this, I am frankly writing as much a cautionary tale for the out-of-control gun cops of the ATF as anyone. For that warning to be credible, I must also present what amounts to a combination field manual, technical manual and call to arms for my beloved gunnies of the armed citizenry. They need to know how powerful they could truly be if they were pushed into a corner."
Last year, Vanderboegh was denounced for calling on citizens to throw bricks through the windows of local Democratic headquarters. He has also appeared as a commentator on Fox News Channel.
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