<Begin Segment 2>

FC: When you were arrested, what time of day did they come by to pick you up, and where and how many?

JO: They arrested me real early in the morning. So happened that I got up at 4 o'clock that morning thinking that I would go to work and finish my route and then take my dog up in the mountains that weekend. And so I was up and I had just finished feeding my dog when heard a knock on the door, outside was all dark. When I opened the door, why, it was, I could see only one man who identified himself as the agent of the FBI. And it was so dark I couldn't see but there were three other men behind him. But I couldn't see them, see. And then this FBI took out a paper and started to read the indictment to me. Just before he started, another FBI man, I guess, flashed a flashlight on the piece of paper from behind. And they didn't read the whole thing, they only read part of the first paragraph which indicted me.

FC: Were you handcuffed?

JO: No, never handcuffed.

FC: They took you by car or bus or train to Cheyenne?

JO: Well, they took me by car to the marshal's office and I was fingerprinted and placed in a upstairs, top floor is holding cages and I was placed in that. And I asked if I could make a phone call. Phone call was denied me. Each time they came to see me I told them I'd like to make my phone call, because I knew I had a right to make one phone call. But each time they denied me.

[Interruption]

FC: Were you allowed to make a phone call?

JO: Not until after I was arraigned. And that was, I was taken to, to the municipal building and it was a funny deal there, very funny because it was a hot day, the sun was out, and part of that courtroom was in sunshine and the other half was in darkness. And just before it got dark, they put, asked me to sit down so I sat down, then the marshal went forward and all I could see is somebody on the bench. I couldn't see him clearly but I could see him because he had a white shirt on. And they had a conference, a long conference down there with someone, I don't know who, but there must have been three or four people. And after the conference, the fellow on the bench asked me, he says, "Do you know what the charge is?" I says, "Yes." And he says, "How do you plead?" "Not guilty," see.

FC: What was the charge?

JO: Conspiracy to vio-, conspiracy to...

FC: Violate the Selective Service law?

JO: No, to... how was it now? How did they say that?

FC: Conspiracy to cause violations of the Selective Service Act?

JO: Yeah, more or less, yeah.

FC: Could you say that? "I was charged with..."

JO: I was charged with conspiracy to violate the Selective Service law.

FC: And you felt you were not guilty.

JO: I said I was not guilty, yeah. And they, and as I said, this was a strange thing because I wasn't told if there was any bond or anything. They conferred by themselves and decided and pretty soon took me out.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 1993, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.