KALISPELL, Mont. — A Montana militia group with an arsenal of weapons planned large-scale assassinations as the first step to an escalating confrontation they hoped would lead to a war with the federal government, local authorities said Wednesday.
"We found weapons, ammunition, survival equipment, booby traps, body armor, explosive, bomb-making equipment, you name it," Flathead County Sheriff Jim Dupont said. "It all certainly supports the theory that there was going to be big trouble. The last I heard, it didn't take 30,000 rounds of ammo to kill a turkey."
The militia group, Dupont said, hoped to kill enough judges, prosecutors and law enforcement officers to force the state to call in the National Guard. The plan was then to kill enough National Guard troops to catch the federal government's attention, setting off an unchecked escalation.
"We're pretty sure they were planning on assassinating as many cops and public officials as possible," he said.
Dupont said charges were expected, though it was unclear how many people belong to the organization. He said he planned to meet with federal prosecutors Friday to determine whether federal conspiracy laws apply.
The militia group also collected "intelligence files" on the targeted officials and their families, who included Dupont's own name and those of a county attorney, police chiefs, district judges, various deputies and police officers and some of their relatives, the sheriff said.
"They had these information sheets, actual forms printed out from a computer," Dupont said. "They had officers' names, addresses, places they eat, places they shop, stuff about their kids. They even had information on what medications one guy's wife was taking."
The group, called Project Seven, was headed by 38-year-old Dave Burgert, who was arrested earlier this month after an armed standoff that lasted nearly seven hours, Dupont said.
Burgert had been awaiting trial on charges he assaulted a police officer in January 2001. He also faced charges of obstructing a police officer in a November 2001 incident.
Burgert faked his own death and disappeared as a judge was ordering him to be taken off house arrest and placed in jail, Dupont said. He was nabbed after an informant member of Project Seven led officers to the home of Tracy Brockway, where Burgert was hiding out.
Brockway, 32, is charged with obstruction of justice for harboring Burgert. She also is suspected of using her job as a cleaning woman at the Whitefish Police Department to gather information about officers and their families.
Burgert and Brockway remain jailed.
Dupont said there is some question "whether this was a wide conspiracy or just Burgert."
Mark Potok, editor of the Southern Poverty Law Center's intelligence report, said that it seemed unlikely Project Seven was a large organization.
Instead, Potok said, it seemed more like a case of "classic leaderless resistance," in which a handful of disgruntled people operate without any leadership or coordination with a network.
The center, which compiles information on hate groups and extremist organizations around the country, has never even heard of Project Seven, he said.
"We don't know of any big underground army operating up there, or anything like that," Potok told FOXNews.com in a telephone interview from his offices in Montgomery, Ala. "I think the likelihood is very much that this might not be more than the two people they arrested."
Dupont said some answers may be on a computer seized at Brockway's house, with much of the information encrypted, although the woman has provided a password to decode some of the information.
The sheriff said the computer files could lead to additional charges against Burgert, as well as conspiracy charges against at least four other area residents believed to be members of Project Seven.
The militia's name refers to license plates in Flathead County, which all begin with the number seven. A similar cell, called Project 56, is believed to be operating in adjacent Lincoln County.
Dupont said the plate-based cells each have about 10 members who are linked by a "mother cell" that serves as a communications hub.
The sheriff said his information came from the very reliable informant.
"Nothing he's told us has not come true," he said.
— The Associated Press contributed to this report.
