As reported earlier, Francis “Schaeffer” Cox and five members and associates of a Fairbanks, Alaska, militia group were arrested yesterday for allegedly plotting to kidnap or kill Alaska State Troopers and a Fairbanks judge.

Last year, Cox was arrested on a misdemeanor firearms charge. During a December 10, 2010 pre-trial hearing before District Judge Jane Kauva, Cox made this statement: “There are a lot of people out there who would just as soon come and kill you in your home at night as argue with you in your court by day.”

His comments were captured in a video espousing Sovereign Citizen ideology that was circulated among right-wing groups online.

Earlier in the same pre-trial hearing, Cox said in open court:

“Soulless federal assassins have made threats on the lives of my wife and children. This, coupled with your long established and well documented practice of refusing to ascertain the truth leaves me but one inescapable conclusion: You are rebellious impostors to reduce [sic] us under absolute despotism.”

The following week, Cox returned to the Fairbanks court house and tried to serve a different judge with a sovereign citizen arrest warrant.

The Alaska Daily News reported that:

Cox also told a state trooper after the hearing that the militia had troopers 'outmanned, outgunned and we could probably have you all dead in one night.' But, Cox added, he could not see himself shooting someone who lives in the same town as he does.

It's unclear at this point whether Judge Kavua was allegedly targeted by Cox and his compatriots.

Karen Loeffler, the Unites States Distirct Attorney for the District of Alaska, said earlier today that one of the four other self-declared “sovereign citizens” arrested yesterday, Lonnie G. Vernon, is being charged with threatening to kill U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Beistline, the chief judge for the U.S. District of Alaska.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner is reporting that Beistline is presiding over a long-running tax-evasion case involving Vernon and his wife.