Judges hear appeal of Fairbanks militia leader's conviction

An advocate for gun rights and the anti-government sovereign citizen ideology in Fairbanks was convicted in 2012 on nine felonies, including conspiracy to commit the murder of federal officials.

'The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports (http://bit.ly/2i7Gcgu ) a panel of federal appeals court judges Wednesday discussed the possibility of throwing out a solicitation to commit murder conviction for former militia leader Schaeffer Cox.

Cox, who was sentenced to serve nearly 26 years in prison, says he believed a team of federal assassins from Aurora, Colorado, had been dispatched to kill him and instructed his security team to be prepared to kill the agents if the agents tried to kill him.

No such "assassins" existed, although at this time, two FBI informants had spent months following Cox and recording their conversations with him.