WICHITA — A lawyer for a Kansas man accused of plotting to attack Somali refugees in Garden City says his client believed then President Barack Obama would declare martial law and not recognize the validity of the election if Donald Trump won forcing “militias” to step in.
The defense claim of a “self-defensive posture” surfaced during a detention hearing Friday for Patrick Stein, whom prosecutors say was the leader of the terror group.
U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren did not immediately rule.
But attorney Ed Robinson offered a glimpse of Stein’s mistaken views that the election would end with social collapse and violence regardless of who won.
Prosecutors allege Stein and others plotted to detonate truck bombs the day after the election at an apartment complex where 120 Somali immigrants live in Garden City.
One of the terror group members, Gavin Wright, is a former Manhattan resident.
