HARRISON — A witness testified Monday that Michael Pierce, 70, of Eureka Springs helped her move guns from a “secret room” in Mark Krause’s Madison County home to Pierce’s house in August, explaining what each gun was during the process.
Cassandra Dunk, a student at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, also told a jury in U.S. District Court in Harrison that Pierce admitted he had lied to the FBI about the unregistered guns, which included a machine gun and two rifles.
Erwin Davis of Fayetteville, Pierce’s attorney, said the telephone conversation Dunk had secretly recorded revealed no lies by Pierce.
“Can you tell me how many lies theFBI paid for?” Davis asked Dunk during his cross examination.
Dunk testified earlier that she had been paid $1,748 by the FBI to compensate her for her time and expenses. She told Davis she didn’t cooperate with the FBI because of the compensation or any threat of prosecution.
The exchange was near the end of the first day of testimony in Pierce’s trial. Dunk was the first of 11 witnesses who are to take the stand during the trial.
Pierce faces 12 federal weapons charges: one over a purported conspiracy with Krause to conceal the weapons, two over purported lies told to the FBI and nine over possession of unregistered firearms.
Krause pleaded guilty March 9 in U.S. District Court in Fayetteville to conspiracy to possess unregistered firearms in violation of U.S. Code, Title 26, Section 5861(d). In his guilty plea, Krause admitted to conspiring with Pierce to possess the weapons.
Krause, a blacksmith and metal artist, has been in custody since his Dec. 3 arrest on a two-count federal complaint that accused him of possessing a bomb and of using it to try to kill a voter or poll worker. Krause wasn’t indicted on the bomb charge, which carried a possible maximum life sentence. The bomb, placed inside a Pepsi can and left outside the Osage Baptist Church, didn’t explode.
Dunk, Krause’s former girlfriend, said the “secret room” in Krause’s home in Forum was concealed by a bookshelf. Moving a particular book to the left caused the bookshelf to open on the side, revealing a 6-foot by 6-foot room where Krause had a gun safe full of weapons.
In his opening argument, Davis said Dunk took each gun to Pierce’s truck and then unloaded them at Pierce’s house. Pierce didn’t know exactly what guns had been unloaded and stored at his house, Davis said. When the FBI asked about Krause’s guns, Pierce produced two flint-lock weapons, a pistol and a rifle, said Davis. Pierce later found two more of Krause’s pistols and called the FBI, Davis said.
Davis said Pierce thought Krause had picked up the rest of his guns, but Dunk said Krause didn’t go back to Pierce’s house after she and Krause visited him in September, and she saw the guns.
A federal grand jury indicted Pierce on Feb. 24 on charges he conspired to hide the illegal weapons for Krause between August and Jan. 7, when agents with the FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives raided Pierce’s house on Arkansas 23.
During the raid, federal agents seized three of Pierce’s more than 250 guns and charged him with illegally possessing two of them.
Pierce, a gun collector who planned to start a museum, is charged with one count of conspiring with Krause to possess unregistered weapons, specifically a Czechoslovakian shortbarreled VZ24, a Ruger 10/22 converted to a machine gun, an automatic Czechoslovakia Sa26, a Heckler and Koch-type trigger pack, and three silencers, two of which had no markings.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 04/26/2011