In an order issued today, U. S. District Court Judge Douglas Harpool rejected McDonald County white supremacist Robert Joos' request for an early release from probation.
Harpool said the request was given "careful consideration," but it was no go.
In his self-filed motion, Joos said he wanted the government to grant him the early release from probation so he could help overworked FBI agents track down the thieves who stole money from his church.
Joos, who spent five years in prison on weapons charges, said that he trusted the wrong people to take care of his church, the Sacerdotal Church of David, while he was locked up. He has served one year of his three-year probationary period:
Continued supervision simply costs more than it's worth, especially since I'm so far from Springfield. It's also hindering the investigation of the ongoing (another truck stolen January 17, 2016) looting (over $1 million in damages) of the church, in that I can't cross state lines to follow leads for the FBI, Joplin office being overworked due to extreme number of meth addicts operating in this area.
My trusting the wrong people to secure church property while I was gone puts the burden of recovering damages on me.Therefore I request early termination of my supervised release.
Joos was arrested in 2009 as part of an FBI investigation into a 2004 racially motivated bombing in Scottsdale, Arizona, which also resulted in the arrests of national white supremacist leaders, the Mahon brothers, Dennis and Daniel.
An Associated Press article in 2009 described Joos' operation:
The Missouri affidavit says the Mahons told an undercover federal agent that white supremacists used Joos's remote property in southwestern Missouri's McDonald County for survival training.
One of the Mahon brothers described Joos as "an expert on weapons, explosives, bomb making and general survival skills," the affidavit said.
Joos himself told undercover agents who visited his property of the importance of having firearms "in several locations" and said he used 18 caves to hide weapons, according to the affidavit.
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