9th Suspect Arrested in Alleged Militia Plot

(March 30) -- Joshua Matthew Stone, the ninth suspect in a Christian militia group's alleged plot to kill a law enforcement official and bomb the funeral with homemade explosives, surrendered peacefully Monday night to the FBI in rural Michigan, after officials played recordings of his family and friends imploring him to turn himself in over a loud speaker.

"Joshua Stone was taken into custody in Hillsdale County, Michigan," the FBI said in a statement to AOL News.

Stone, 21, had been a fugitive earlier Monday, as eight other suspected members of the Hutaree militia group -- including his father, David Brian Stone, 45, and his brother, David Brian Stone, Jr., 19, the plot's alleged ringleaders -- were indicted on charges of conspiring to wage war against the United States. They were also charged with attempted use of weapons of mass destruction, teaching the use of explosive materials and carrying a firearm during a violent crime.

Heavily armed officers arrested Joshua Stone at his home in Wheatland Township, Mich., 30 miles from the house where his father was arrested Saturday evening in Adrian, as part of FBI raids that also stretched into Indiana and Ohio.

"We're guessing he's been in there at least a day," Andrew Arena, head of the FBI's field office in Detroit, told The Associated Press after Stone surrendered, adding that Stone's relatives "worked with us" by recording messages urging him to turn himself in.

The FBI said in the indictment that the Hutaree, which wrote on its Web site that it was training for battle with the Antichrist, began paramilitary-style training in the woods of Michigan in August 2008. The group planned to launch an attack against local, state and federal law enforcement officials next month, the indictment said. David Brian Stone and David Brian Stone Jr. are believed to have trained Hutaree members to fashion homemade bombs. The elder was reportedly known as "Captain Hutaree."

Stone's ex-wife, Donna Stone, told the AP her ex-husband lured her son, Stone Jr., into the Hutaree, a group she said began modestly before growing more extreme.

"It started out as a Christian thing," Donna Stone said. "You go to church. You pray. You take care of your family. I think David started to take it a little too far."

Others at the house where Joshua Stone was arrested were taken into custody, but it was not clear whether they have ties to Hutaree. Prosecutors said the group's alleged plot included plans to target police officers by luring them with fake 911 calls, surprising them at traffic stops or attacking their family members.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said the arrests of the nine militia members dealt "a severe blow to a dangerous organization that today stands accused of conspiring to levy war against the United States."