Wrongful Federal conviction of innocent
museum owner in Boone North Carolina exposed

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The curator of the North Carolina Military Museum was the target of a BATF raid Tuesday, June 28. With search warrants in hand, ATF agents seized about 20 fully automatic firearms -- all legally registered to the curator -- inert artillery shells on display and about 100,000 rounds of small arms ammunition, according to the curator.

Agents claimed the shells contain powder residue -- yet were clearly labeled "EOD INERT." Agents also claimed that the ammunition could have been stolen from the military. Curator Greg Pruess told NRA Public Affairs that he holds a Class III and a destructive device manufacturing license.

Pruess noted that ATF's computer print-out of the Class III firearms he had registered was inaccurate and said the agents did not know how to identify some of the firearms in question.

The small arms ammo was stored in a storage building adjacent to the museum. Once the agents noted the extent of the ammo, they called the press. Parroting comments made by the agents, local reporters said an explosion of the ammo cache could have caused a crater a half-mile wide. (Later news reports expanded the crater porential to a mile-wide.)

The agents came across an RPG launcher (inert, with operating devices welded-over) and allowed a member of the news crew to shoulder it while videotaping. "This is the kind of communist bloc weaponry" that prompted the raid, an agent told the press.

The seizure was the result of "an ongoing investigation for three years" involving an informant, Pruess said.

UPDATE!!

The Editor of ATF Abuse was just contacted by the victim of this heainous attack on his
civil rights by the Federal Gestapo, the ATF. Here is his update:

RE: Greg Pruess Legal Military Museum

I was finally proven innocent of the charges brought by the U.S. Attorrney's office in N.C. that sent me to prison. This was done without an attorney and by myself in Federal Court in Statesville N.C. March 24th 2004. 10 years after the fact! I was indicted in 1994 and sent to prison wrongly in 1996.

The BATFE explosives agent Richard Campbell, under oath stated that the the ammunition, 40mm and larger that I was indicted for as "Destructive Devices" were not then, nor are they now, Destructive devices without their launchers.

However, now that the evidence has finally come out that was never offered timely by the government as to the proper classification of the ammo, its too late, the Court says, to do anything about my conviction!!!

Innocence has an expiration date, it seems, and no one cares. ATF destroyed my museum, my family, my reputation, my livilihood and sent me to prison!! The justice system is a fascade and cares nothing about setting anything right even when the government's own expert confirms the real truth under oath in open court.

What happens now, I was subsecuently again indicted as a felon in possession of firearms in 1997 for keeping my gun collection of 25 years because I knew I was right but couldn't prove with the cover up, when I was actually never legally convicted in the first place to be a felon!

Its all a mess and there isn't any recourse it seems. Innocent but left convicted because innocence has an expiration date like food! That should be the title of the story, please use that if you will.

Anyone at NRA want to help? NRA funded my inneffective do nothing lawyer $10,000.00 in 1995, at least the rest of the story needs to be told.

No one in government is accountable for the wrongs done to me apparently, how can this be in America, anyone know a good lawyer who can help me repair my life and sue those involved and the lawyer then for doing nothing correctly and just not carring what happened to me???
Thanks, Greg Pruess

Thanks, Greg Pruess 828-964-0044

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