NEW LISBON, Wis. – Local police agencies realized almost immediately that the murder of retired Judge John Roemer was more than they could handle. Two years earlier, abut 12 miles away near Necedah, there had been a camp where assassins trained secretly to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The governor’s name was on a list in a car parked outside the judge’s house. Sheriff Brett Oleson did two things. First, the sheriff called in neighboring police agencies for a possible stand-off with anyone still in the judge’s house. Second, Oleson contacted the state Division of Criminal Investigation. DCI took over. The state attorney general, Josh Kaul, rushed 80 miles from Madison. Eventually the FBI was summoned.
Oleson. Juneau County Sheriff.
Kaul. Wisconsin attorney general.
The back story
A group calling utself the Wolverine Watchmen formed as a branch of Michigan Militia, a a nongovernment unit, indeed an antigovernment insurgent unit. The headquarters was a backroom at a vacuum repair shop in Grand Rapids, Michigan. There was conspired a plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer at a bridge at her summer cabin, to generate publicity for the cause, and to assassinate her. At some pint an undercover FBI agent infiltrated the group. The grouo also setup a training camp 285 miles away at Necedah, Wisconsin. At the camp the members practiced marksmanship and explosives. Still unbeknown to the conspirators was that the FBI was tracking all of this.
Deciding enough was enough, the FBI sought grand jury indictments, Fourteen men either were indicted by a federal grand jury or arrested on state charges. These included Brian Higgins of Wisconsin Dells, only 38 miles from the Necedah training camp and only 26 miles from New Lisbon, where Judge Riemer was tortured and slain last. The charge against Higgins: Lending material support to terrorism. The FBI and the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation have kept a tight lid on pending charges against Douglas K. Uhde in the Judge Riemer case. He remains comatose in a Wisconsin hospital from a since attempting suicide in the judge’s basement the morning of the killing.
There is no official confirmation whether Uhde’s path ever crosse those of Wolverine Watchmen conspirators in prison or elsewhere. The court cases against the Wolverine watchmen didn’t go smoothly for the FBI. The defenses generally were tat the men were just tossing around ideas in discussing possibilities and that nobody should have taken the conspiratorial allegations seriously. There were acquittals, hung juries, and relatively minor sentences.
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Whitmer. Michigan governor.
Uhde. Why was Whitmer on a list in Uhde’s car? And why too Wisconsin Governor Tony Evans? And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in Congress? A personal vendetta against Judge Roemer seems obvious. Roemer sent him to prison. Other names on the list have little in common, at least ideologically and politically. Does the list suggest a wider game plan? Federal and state investigators have been mum.
Timeline
2005: Judge sentenced Uhde to six years in prison and nine years of extended supervision on a weapons conviction.
January 2020: FBI learns of Wolverine Watchmen plotting.
April 2020: Uhde released from a Wisconsin prison.
Earlier: Shooting victim indeed was judge
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