WINCHESTER, Va. — A federal trial for a former Civil War reenactor accused of planting a pipe bomb at a Virginia battlefield and threatening to disrupt different occasions has been set for subsequent yr.
Gerald Leonard Drake, 63, had been on the docket for a jury trial in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia beginning Dec. 16. Last week, nevertheless, a choose ordered that the proceedings be rescheduled for July to provide protection attorneys extra time to arrange, The Winchester Star reported.
A federal indictment unsealed final month accused Drake of planting a pipe bomb at Cedar Creek Battlefield, about 80 miles west of Washington, throughout an annual reenactment in October 2017.
The pipe bomb didn’t detonate and was rendered protected by police.
The indictment additionally expenses Drake with writing letters threatening violence at subsequent Cedar Creek reenactments in addition to at an annual Remembrance Day Parade in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Drake has pleaded not responsible.
According to Judge Elizabeth Dillon’s order, his trial is now scheduled for July 10 to Aug. 4, 2023.
Drake is being held with out bond within the Central Virginia Regional Jail. His lawyer, Donald Pender of Charlottesville, filed a movement final week asking that Drake be launched till trial.
The movement says that since a previous detention listening to, all firearms had been faraway from his residence. It additionally says that Drake has dietary restrictions resulting from allergy symptoms, acid reflux disorder and ulcers, and that the jail has stopped accommodating these restrictions.
“He is currently only able to eat bread, water, and some fruit. In addition, his dentures have recently broken, and the jail has been unable to fix them, which further limits what he can eat,” the submitting says.
Christopher Kavanaugh, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, has mentioned Drake falsely claimed connections to antifa — quick for “anti-fascists” and an umbrella time period for far-left-leaning militant teams — in his threatening letters to cover his precise identification.
In actuality, in response to the indictment, Drake was a Civil War re-enactor who recurrently participated in occasions at Cedar Creek till he was expelled from his unit in 2014.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”