03/21/2020
THIS IS NOT THE WHOLE STORY,NAME AND DETAILS AT A LATER DATE,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Roane County Newspaper Friday 20,2020
Richard and Joann Minnick’s page lists them as Moonshiner Pappi and Moonshiner Mama Jo.
The Rockwood couple has appeared at festivals, in documentaries and music videos portraying moonshiners.
According to Richard Minnick, it’s all an act that became all too real with a Dec. 10 raid on their home by dozens of agents with the State Alcoholic Beverage Commission.
Following the dismissal of their case on Feb. 14, the Minnick’s are seeking the return of belongings seized during the raid.
The couple and their attorney believe the home was raided by agents based on nothing more than a post made on their page.
“They checked Facebook on Sunday, they got the search warrant on Monday, and they came on Tuesday the 10th and raided us,” Joann Minnick said. “They didn’t investigate anything other than what they saw on Facebook.”
The Minnick’s maintain that they are merely entertainers and their page was to convey the personas of Moonshiners that they had established as an act.
The Minnicks described the day of the raid.
“I’m sitting on the chair here, and I see these flashing lights,” Richard said. “And then I heard a siren and thought ‘they must think a fire was here.’ So I went out to the porch. And there was about 50 agents dressed in black.”
Richard said that the agents trained rifle laser sights on him, and restrained him at gunpoint.
Joann woke up to a loud bang which she said was as loud as a lightning strike, and upon looking outside for storm clouds saw sharpshooters in her backyard and an armored carrier with a battering ram in her front yard.
After being restrained and placed in a vehicle, Joann said the female agent who checked her for weapons never stated whether they were under arrest or not.
The two described themselves sitting in a vehicle for a long time before being driven away.
“We go up to the other side of the circle, there’s a church,” Joann said. “She turns right in there and we park at the church. So we sit in that parking lot for about two hours. She finally tells me, I’m not under arrest, I’m being detained.”
They were asked about things such as where their stash of money was and where the b***y traps were, despite the two claiming to have no idea what they were talking about. They also claimed some of the agents were taking pictures of other officers holding guns at the two.
Shortly after this, the two were abruptly transported back to their home.
“She (the agent) said ‘Okay, we’re going to leave now,” Joann said. “I’m thinking ‘Okay, now we’re going to jail.’ Come down the hill and we’re back in our driveway.”
Richard described watching the agents “rip the house up” as they seized things from the house as evidence, after which the agents simply left the home.
Among the items seized were computers, cell phones, SD cards, tablet devices, dressers, a box of business cards, note pads, jars of various liquids, bags of sweet feed, bags of corn and rye, bags of sugar, bags of yeast, water bottles, a copper fitting, flavoring chips, and a 5-gallon container of apple pie moonshine according to the report from the ABC. The couple claims that the agents even took a small bottle of beard oil their son uses because it was apple pie moonshine scented.
“This is a non-violent crime they said we did, right?” Richard said. “But yet, you’ve got a murderer, you’ve got a bank robber, you’ve got rapists, and all that stuff. They don’t use that much force for them. We was one step below Waco and Ruby Ridge.”
“They were told, that if we tried to run, to shoot us down,” Joann said.
They also claim that the report of the raid had numerous falsehoods such as the odor of the place being described as smelling of urine and f***s, having the wrong names and ages for their grandchildren, and the report claims the two had been making moonshine since 2013.
However, they claim that their still doesn’t actually work, and they had only tried to make moonshine a couple of times but were unsuccessful. Richard says that the large still they had was a non-functioning display that the couple would take to places for people to take pictures of.
The arrest report claims 50 gallons of moonshine were seized but the Minnick’s said there was nothing but water stored in the containers. The fact that charges were dropped indicates there was no moonshining going on in the home.
They said that due to claims in the report that the two had been living in a dirty environment and had likely been giving moonshine to their grandchildren that Child Protective Services arrived the day after the raid. They also said that the agents for CPS weren’t able to find any evidence that the children should be removed.
“That agent walked through every room in this house and said ‘I don’t know what they’re talking about,” Joann said. “He said ‘there’s nothing wrong in this house.”
Joann said that her attorney told her that Joshua Hoskins, the agent who conducted the search warrant, justified the raid by claiming the Minnicks were sovereign citizens.
“How can we be sovereign citizens?” Joann said. “We all have driver’s licenses, we all obey traffic laws, we wear our seat belts. We all carry guns, but we have permits for every one of the guns we own. A sovereign citizen wouldn’t have any of that.”
“I don’t blame the officers that were here,” Richard said. “Some of them were nice.”
“They were doing the job they were instructed to.” Joann said.
“I don’t respect special agent Joshua Hoskins, for what he’s doing,” Richard said. “Because he used us to make a name for himself.”
“The ABC agent had done no research at all,” said Jason Hines, the Minnick family’s attorney. “He could have gotten someone killed by not doing his homework.”
The Friday after the raid, the two went to see their attorney.
“I told the attorney ‘I’m afraid to go outside,” Joann said. “Because I don’t know if they’re coming back.”
After visiting their attorney, Joann went to check the mail and found a hollow point bullet marked with a 14, and later after Christmas she also found an unloaded pistol clip.
“That bullet was lying in my driveway down where my grandkids play basketball,” Joann said.
After the case was dismissed, the Minnick family tried to retrieve the items seized during the raid.
“This stuff went through the grand jury, they said nothing. It was dismissed,” Richard said. “We go try and get our stuff back and can’t get ahold of nobody to get our stuff back. They’re supposed to get hold of you and say ‘Hey, I’ve got your stuff,’ right? To give it back to you. But after a year, if they can’t get ahold of you, then they destroy it.”
Richard stressed the importance of their electronics specifically.
“I have medical problems, right? I don’t have a phone to take with me. I don’t have the money to buy another phone,” he said. “The kids use computers for school. They can’t use their computers now because they (the agents) took it.”
“I should be able to get the electronics back,” said Hines. “They’re going to fight me on anything else.”
“The DA’s office has been very responsive with us,” Hines added. “They weren’t part of the raid until it was already in progress.”
“The case was no-billed by the grand jury,” said District Attorney General Russell Johnson. ”If they (the ABC) consider it an on-going case, it’s their investigation, not ours.”
When the ABC was contacted for comment, the agency said that the case was “an on-going investigation.”
“Let them present this to a jury,” said Hines. “I doubt you’d convince 12 Tennesseans that the ABC was in the right on this.”
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