The trial of Jeremy Brown came to an end on Monday with the reading of a verdict that was less than desirable, but better than it could have been. The breakdown of the charges are as follows:
- Counts 1 and 2 dealt with the short-barreled rifle and modified shotgun Jeremy knowingly possessed without registering the weapons with the federal government. He was found guilty of those two charges.
- Counts 3, 4 and 5 dealt with the possession of two fragmentation grenades and the unlawful storage of them. He was found guilty of those three charges.
- Counts 6, 7, 8, and 9 dealt with classified documents that were contained on a CD that was allegedly found in Jeremy Brown’s RV. He was found not guilty on those four charges.
- Count 10 dealt with a physical “classified” document that Jeremy Brown had in his RV. He was found guilty of that charge.
Jeremy Brown is a retired Special Forces Green Beret who served with absolutely remarkable distinction throughout his entire military career. Brown had extraordinary marks on 16 of his 17 evaluations throughout his career, the anomaly coming at the very end of his career after he began planning his retirement.
On December 2020, federal agents approached Jeremy Brown about being an informant for them on January 6th, 2021. The agents visited Brown’s home and spoke with his girlfriend, Tylene Aldridge, who originally told them Jeremy wasn’t home, when in fact he was.
During testimony, Aldridge said that the agents identified themselves by a business card-sized piece of “thin paper” and, because she didn’t think it was authentic, she told them Brown wasn’t home. They were also wearing masks that concealed their faces. Brown would later come to the door, at which time they asked him to be an informant.
Fast forward several months. Brown would eventually release the CCTV footage of the agents attempting to recruit him after becoming discouraged by FBI Director Christopher Wray’s testimony under oath. On September 30, 2021, the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force, comprised of both federal and local agencies, descended upon Jeremy Brown’s residence with a search warrant in hand.
The justification for the search warrant was two misdemeanors. That should terrify every single American, regardless of politics: federal agents were able to shop a judge and find one that would justify a search of a 20 year retired Green Beret who never went inside the Capitol building and did not incite violence, but rather saved a woman’s life according to a recording from that day.
During the search, a Hillsborough County Sheriff detective entered Brown’s RV while assisting with the search. While in the RV, he claimed to have found what appeared to be two grenades in a chest rig that was allegedly owned by Brown. Immediately, the scene was cleared and bomb technicians entered the RV. The FBI photographer handed off his camera to a Tampa PD bomb tech to document the grenades inside the RV. The grenades were then brought outside the RV and laid in the grass to be photographed some more.
The grenades were wrapped up with duct tape, which is a makeshift “safety” to prevent the spoon from falling off in case the pin is accidentally pulled. The pin itself, which is shaped like a round key ring, is also taped so that nothing can get inside the ring portion and accidentally pull the pin back while you’re moving. Forensics recovered human hair, dog hair, textile fibers and two samples of male DNA from the tape around the grenades.
The human hair did not match Jeremy Brown.
The dog hair did not match either of Jeremy Brown’s dogs.
The carpet fibers did not match any of the carpeting in Jeremy Brown’s house or RV.
The DNA samples did not match Jeremy Brown.
Anyone that owns a dog, let alone two dogs and a cat, knows how difficult it is to keep something in your home or dwelling where your dogs frequent without hair getting everywhere. Especially stuck to the sticky side of duct tape. Yet the only forensics on the grenades were from unknown sources that seem to have stayed on the tape since whomever last handled the grenades before Brown.
There is nothing to tie Brown to those grenades except the FBI and Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Dept. claiming to have found the grenades in his RV. Brown had 14 CCTV cameras that were turned off, not only through the clearing of the property but also during the search. And neither the officers nor the agents wore body cameras. In this era of police transparency, that would have documented everything they did in real-time.
The prosecution requested a TRACE report on the grenades. This report tracks the grenades based on the lot number they came from. Any and every location that the grenades have been checked in at throughout their “life”, which for these particular grenades began in 1986, is documented by the TRACE report. Grenades are tracked by “lot”, not by individual grenades. So anytime grenades from that lot number are checked in it is documented.
The prosecution did not, however, request or seek out the date and time that the grenades were checked in at these locations. This would be imperative information to show a correlation with Jeremy Brown being in the same location at the same time as the grenades. It would also likely implicate other soldiers in his unit of helping him obtain these grenades by falsifying expenditure reports, etc.
Despite the prosecution not being able to tie the grenades to Jeremy in any way, but rather having circumstantial evidence that suggests they weren’t his or in his possession previously, he was found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of those grenades being planted by federal agents.
The last sentence above is important: was it too difficult for the jury to believe that federal agents would plant explosives as evidence against someone who was outspoken about the FBI? Brown’s attorney, Roger Futerman, alleged that the FBI had planted evidence during his opening statement, so the concept should at least have been relevant in the jury’s minds throughout the trial.
In the search of the RV, a CD marked “SECRET” with a big red sticker was allegedly found in a briefcase owned by Brown. Also inside the briefcase was a “trip report” from Afghanistan in 2005 that was marked “Classified”. More on that to come. The FBI photographer took a picture of the trip report and had it redacted. In that very same picture of the redacted trip report, you can barely make out what appears to be the corner of a rectangular flat object, blue in color. The prosecution would argue that that was the FBI’s photograph of the CD to place it at the crime scene.
However, the FBI Staff Specialist who was logging the pictures that day, and was “attached at the hip” to the FBI photographer, testified that she did not see a CD with a red business card sized “SECRET” sticker across it. The CD did not have its own individual picture taken nor was it on the evidence log sheet from that day. A photo did emerge some time later of the CD in full on a table. The table, however, was inconsistent with anything in Brown’s RV or home. The photo was also missing a timestamp.
The FBI would go on to admit that the photo was not taken at Brown’s residence. It was not on the evidence log the day of the search. The prosecution had numerous witnesses testify as to how dangerous the classified information on the CD could be to national security, but the FBI wouldn’t even examine the contents of the CD until a full year later on 9/12/22. I guess there wasn’t a sense of urgency to see how the United States had been compromised by Brown having those “sensitive” documents.
The prosecution argued that the CD was burned by or for Brown during a January 2005 deployment to Afghanistan to lead a search and rescue mission for the well-known POW Bowe Bergdahl. It allegedly contained over 30 classified documents, but the prosecution only charged Brown with four.
Years later at a funeral for a fallen brother, Brown was talking with investigative journalist and former special forces operator Jack Murphy about the CD. Brown claimed he was trying to feel out Murphy to determine if he’d be interested in a story involving the Bergdahl mission.
Nothing apparently came about from the conversation in terms of a story, however, months later Brown received a visit from a Special Investigator with the US Air Force. The investigator asked Brown questions about classified documents involving the Bergdahl mission. Brown allowed the special investigator to search a shed he had in the back of his house that contained all of his military gear and records. The investigator did not find any classified documents…or any grenades. He then asked Brown to search his home while also suggesting he doesn’t have to let him in. Brown refused. The investigator left. And that was that.
Almost four years later, that deployment would become a key component of this trial.
And Jeremy Brown was found not guilty of all four counts charging that Brown had a CD with classified documents.
Apparently the jury believes the FBI could plant a CD, but not grenades. The question is: why risk getting caught planting a CD when you already have weapons charges that would lock him up for a decade or more?
In the same briefcase with the “SECRET” CD was a trip report containing classified information about the Bowe Bergdahl mission. During the trial, the prosecution reiterated through numerous witnesses the significance of the report being released and how it could lead to the “arrest, torture or murder” of a confidential source.
The defense, in cross examination, would ask “is this a draft or a final copy of this document?” The response from the witness was typically that they don’t know but it wouldn’t matter if its a draft or a final copy. The information would still be classified.
What they didn’t know is that Brown had written a “template” for this report during his long trip home. He did not have access to the necessary SIPR computer system used to submit classified information. But rather than wait until he was back stateside to begin the document. He wrote it out and formatted it using what he claims was unclassified information as fillers to later go back and fill it in with the actual classified details. Classified documents are quite complex and have many headers and footers, signatures, classification designations and other miscellaneous notations in the documents.
According to Brown, none of the information in the document was classified, and its unclear if the prosecution ever checked the draft template Brown had against the actual classified document.
Still, the jury found him guilty of this count.
“I could tell a bag of lies and they’d still love the sh*t out of me.”
This statement was read aloud by US Attorney Daniel Marcet when Brown took the stand in his own defense. Brown quickly remarked that the statement is out of context. He elaborated, roughly, what was really said:
I could be long-winded and my attorneys advised me to keep it short and sweet, but I wanted to make sure the truth go out there. I could tell a bag of lies and they’d love the sh*t out of me, but I didn’t care if they loved me or liked me. I cared about getting the truth out.
Marcet then moved on in the questioning as if the statement was never mentioned.
That is until closing arguments when US Attorney Menno Goedman deceptively and dishonestly misquoted Brown once again. Perhaps Goedman dozed off during Marcet’s cross examination of Brown as he frantically fumbled through several documents, hoping to get Brown to slip up in his responses, but ultimately conceded without making any sort of a valid point with the series of questions.
Marcet would later go on to talk about going through US Customs when returning home from an overseas deployment. He compared it to a US citizen going through Customs on their way home from vacation or travel abroad. This was during the rebuttal of closing arguments, so the defense did not get a chance to clear this up. This misinformation was significant because it gave means to bringing home not only the CD, but also the grenades.
Marcet clearly did not serve in the US military, especially during OIF/OEF. Nor does it seem he consulted with someone who did. Coming home from a theatre of war is in no way, shape or form even remotely similar to passing through Customs on vacation as a private US citizen. US servicemembers are searched just short of a full body cavity search. Every piece of equipment we own is gone over meticulously. Computers are opened to check for CDs and USB cards, magazines are checked for ammunition, shoes are checked for anything stuffed down inside, etc. It is unlikely that Master Sergeant Brown was able to smuggle a classified CD (without courier paperwork) and/or two live grenades through US Customs.
Lastly, the prosecution once again alleged that Tylene Aldridge, girlfriend to Jeremy Brown, lied to federal agents about Brown being home when they knocked on the door and asked. He even went as far as alleging it was a criminal act despite a flimsy xerox paper business card being shown as the only form of ID.
Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
For the last two years, since January 6th, 2021, the media has had an infatuation with the term “insurrection”:
CNN and MSNBC used the term almost daily. The Washington Post and NY Times have all used the term. It’s trended on Twitter.
The United States Congress assembled a joke of a partisan committee to flaunt the term in their prime time hearings.
Joe Biden has used the term in referring to those in attendance on January 6th.
It’s safe to say that there aren’t many US citizens who aren’t familiar with the term in the context of those in DC on January 6th.
But has anyone actually been convicted, or even charged, under 18 USC 2383? No. Not a single person.
The dissemination of this disinformation has caused far more damage than anything CNN and others did to Nicholas Sandman or Kyle Rittenhouse. The media and our own government are labeling these men and women with a term that has a legal definition yet none of them have been charged with that crime by any law enforcement agency.
What are the chances that these people can get a fair jury that doesn’t see them as an “insurrectionist”? When Jeremy Brown accuses the federal government of planting a classified CD and grenades, the jury believes the former but not the latter. Why? “Insurrectionist”. Of course he would have grenades! He planned on taking over the US Government, by definition, according to our very own Congress, Joe Biden, and the Mainstream Mockingbird Media! </sarcasm>
This deliberate mislabeling makes it appropriate and justifiable to the general public when judges withhold bail, dismiss a motion to suppress without a hearing, keep them locked up in solitary confinement, or sentence them unfairly despite their service to the country or their good behavior.
Even though MSgt Brown is going to remain in prison, the verdict wasn’t entirely a loss. Brown will certainly appeal the decision and winning on four of the charges could help his case.
“The Fruit of the Poisonous Tree.” This is a term that refers to evidence gathered from an unlawful search, in this case a warrant issued over two misdemeanor charges. This is a dangerous precedent to set and allow: it could subject many US citizens to unlawful searches based on the most trivial and minuscule of “crimes.”
The Motion to Suppress Brown’s case was originally dismissed without a hearing.
** You can donate to Master Sergeant Brown’s defense fund at JeremyBrownDefense.com and GiveSendGo.