APn  02/24  1811  Sedition Trial By BILL SIMMONS Associated Press
Writer.

   FORT SMITH, Ark. (AP) -- A  key  prosecution  witness  in  the
sedition  trial of members of a white supremacist group testified
under cross-examination from a defendant that he receives  direct
guidance from God.

   After the government used Jim Ellison's testimony to implicate
many  of  the 10 men accused of plotting the violent overthrow of
the government, defendant Louis Ray Beam Jr.  questioned  Ellison
on his religious beliefs.

   Ellison testified Tuesday "a prophet of God" led him to settle
in  Arkansas,  where  he  was  annointed  "King of the Ozarks" by
Robert Millar, leader of a religious group in Oklahoma.

   Ellison also said he  has  the  gift  of  prophecy  and  is  a
descendant of the biblical King David.

   "Has  anyone ever suggested to you before today that you, sir,
might be paranoid?"  Beam asked.

   "Before today, I've heard it," Ellison said.

   Beam and nine others, including Aryan Nations  leader  Richard
Butler, are  accused  of  seditious conspiracy.  The 10, and four
others on trial, espouse white supremacist  goals  or  belong  to
white supremacist groups, the government alleges.

   Those  four,  and one of the accused conspirators, are charged
with plotting to kill a federal judge and an FBI agent.  Two also
are accused of interstate transportation of stolen money.   Those
charged  with conspiring to overthrow the government face maximum
sentences of 20 years in prison and $20,000 fines  if  convicted,
while  the charge of plotting to kill federal officials carries a
maximum life sentence.

   The government contends the  conspiracy  involved  actions  to
kill  Jews,  who were seen by the white supremacists as in charge
of the United States government.

   Ellison  has  testified  that   in   1983,   members   of   an
Arkansas-based  religious-military  group he led had participated
in  a  murder,  robberies  and  attempts  to  blow   up   utility
facilities.

   Ellison  is  serving  20  years  for  racketeering and weapons
violations committed when he led the group, called the  Covenant,
the Sword and the Arm of the Lord.  He was arrested in 1985 after
a four-day standoff.

   Richard  Wayne Snell, a member of Ellison's group, is on death
row in Arkansas for the 1983  murder  of  Texarkana  pawn  broker
William Stumpp.

   Ellison  testified  that  Snell,  one of the 14 on trial here,
decided to kill the pawn broker because he considered him  to  be
"an evil man, he was a Jew, and that he just needed to die."

   Snell  also  is  serving a sentence of life without parole for
the 1984 slaying of state Trooper Louis Bryant.

   Ellison said Beam and others agreed in 1983  at  Hayden  Lake,
Idaho,  to  step  up  activities to bring down the government and
replace it with an all-white state in the Northwest.

   Ellison also has testified that defendant Robert Miles, 63, of
Cohoctah, Mich., gave him a 30-gallon barrel of cyanide to poison
the water supplies of New York or  Washington,  D.C.,  to  create
civil unrest.

   Butler,  69, of the Aryan Nations group, gave approval for the
CSA to provide sanctuary to members of The Order when  they  were
"in trouble with the law," Ellison said.

   At  a  trial  in  Seattle,  more  than 20 people, many of them
members  of  The  Order,  were  convicted  of  racketeering   for
robberies of  banks  and armored cars.  Some of the defendants in
the Fort Smith case were sentenced in the Seattle case.
