By Glynn Wilson –

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Vietnam Army veteran and Trump supporter from Lacon Mountain in Falkville, Alabama who got caught and arrested in the nation’s capital on Jan. 6 with 11 Molotov cocktails and a cache of guns and ammunition was denied bond this week by a federal judge.

In a 24-page ruling, issued without a hearing and first obtained by The Washington Post, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly denied 71-year-old Lonnie Leroy Coffman’s request for release on bond, citing sealed government filings she said “convincingly demonstrate” his planned intentions to disrupt Congress in potential coordination with right-wing, anti-government militia groups to plan and carry out attacks against members of Congress.

The judge, first appointed to a court by Republican President Ronald Reagan back in the 1980s, reveals in the redacted ruling that prosecutors showed Coffman had approached Texas Senator Ted Cruz at his D.C. residence and office to discuss “election fraud,” and that had been part of an anti-immigration militia camp along the Texas-Mexico border. The FBI identified Coffman as a participant at Camp Lonestar, an encampment set up in Brownsville, Texas back in 2014 by armed citizens, some wearing military fatigues, with the stated goal of pushing back illegal immigrants crossing the border.

“This evidence indicates that Mr. Coffman had potential plans to coordinate with other members of the January 6, 2021 riots at the United States Capitol,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote.

Coffman awaits trial on 16 counts of D.C. firearms violations and one count of federal firearm violations for “possessing some of the deadliest unregistered weapons and explosives on the day of the riots that breached the Capitol, led to assaults on nearly 140 police officers and forced the evacuation of Congress,” The Post reports.

The unemployed, divorced Alabama man was arrested “by happenstance” on Jan. 6, according to charging papers, after police spotted weapons in his red pickup truck while searching an area of Capitol Hill that had been sealed off at about 1 p.m. because unexploded pipe bombs had been reported near Republican and Democratic party headquarters minutes before the mob assault on the Capitol began, possibly as a diversionary maneuver to divert police resources in advance of the breach of the building. No arrests have ever been made in relation to the pipe bombs, even though video footage of a potential culprit in a hoodie was released to the public.

Represented by a court appointed attorney, Coffman pleaded not guilty. But a raid on his house in Falkville discovered more firearms, improvised explosives and papers tying him to another pro-Trump anti-government militia group. Coffman kept documents on federal judges and a list of Democratic lawmakers to target, and combined with other evidence according to the judge, “raises serious concerns about Mr. Coffman’s desire and ability to engage in politically motivated violence” and shows that he posed too great a risk of flight and being a danger to the public to let him out on bail before trial.

While the camp in Texas had disbanded, several volunteer members and leaders were found guilty of weapons violations. When Coffman was arrested, his wallet contained a piece of paper with the address for Camp Lonestar and contact information for a member of the American Patriots group of Southeast Texas, prosecutors say. Papers discovered in his home referred to a second group, the Southwest Desert Militia, according to the judge’s ruling.

FBI charging papers show that police found 11 homemade, molotov-cocktails in Mason jars along with lighters and rags in Coffman’s truck, made with gasoline and melted plastic foam to produce a “napalm-like” explosion of sticky, flammable liquid. They also found and confiscated a loaded Windham semi-automatic rifle with a scope, a loaded Hatfield shotgun, two 9mm pistols and a .22-caliber pistol, several large-capacity ammunition feeding devices loaded with more than 10 rounds of rifle ammunition, as well as a crossbow, machetes, a stun gun and smoke devices.

Related Coverage: Rioters Charged for Crimes Committed During the Trump Insurrection Rally and Violent Attack on U.S. Capitol

The FBI also said it found handwritten notes in Coffman’s truck, one with a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln: “We The People Are The Rightful Masters Of Both The Congress And The Courts, Not To Overthrow The Constitution But To Overthrow The Men Who Pervert The Constitution.”

That note allegedly named a federal judge as a “bad guy” and referred to a Democratic House member using terms the court order redacted. Another handwritten note listed supposed contact information for Hannity, Levin and Cruz, according to charging papers and court filings.

At the time of the raid on Coffman’s house in Falkville, commenters went back and forth about the raid and his arrest on a Facebook post by the Cullman Daily News near Falkville in North Alabama.

Lisa Bly Shaver complained: “WHY WAS THE LAW THERE??? AND WHOSE BUSINESS IS IT THAT HE WENT TO DC? What did he do wrong? This is BULLSHIZ (sic).”

Tavares Riley, on the other hand, said: “These thugs need to (be) locked up.”

In a story at the time from The Decatur Daily, which is protected by a paywall, neighbors were quoted about Coffman.

“I have never talked with him,” neighbor Lauren Holt said. “But I know he was very standoffish. He has ‘no trespassing’ signs in his yard and a log blocking his driveway.”

Morgan County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Mike Swafford said he couldn’t say if any evidence was seized at the property at Old U.S. 31 and Bell Springs Cut. He said because of the Molotov cocktails found in Washington, “extra precaution was taken on the property. Emergency Management Services were staged in the area as a precaution with ATF and explosive technicians on scene.”

Holt said she was “startled” when she recognized her neighbor’s house on the news. “I didn’t know who he was,” she said. “I saw him out in the yard but I was surprised” when he was accused of a connection to the rioting in D.C.

“That’s hitting pretty close to home,” she said.

About 20 houses, mostly mobile homes, several with pro-Second Amendment signs in the windows and one with a tattered Confederate flag flying on a pole in the yard, sit within a quarter-mile of Coffman’s brick residence, the paper reported. Two-hundred yards east of Coffman’s house sits the Bell Springs Missionary Baptist Church.

Grady Riddle said he has lived about six months across the street, 50 yards to the south, from Coffman on Bell Springs Cut.

“I was surprised and flabbergasted when I heard that he was a suspect in the rioting,” said Riddle, who is in his 20s. “I’d usually see him working on his truck near the street because he kept his driveway blocked. We’d wave to each other when I went to work in the morning. I considered him just the old guy next door.”

Court records show Coffman and his wife of 48 years received an uncontested divorce in Cullman County in 2019. They were married in Morgan County in 1971. His wife’s complaint for divorce said the couple had become incompatible and separated in June 2011.

In 2002, Lonnie Coffman won a workers’ compensation lump sum settlement of $20,000 from employer Cooper Industries, Nicholson File Division in Cullman, where he worked for 24 years. He cited carpal tunnel syndrome issues in both hands and a hernia.

More Photos

Lonnie Coffman Statement of Facts