Mathews was sentenced to six months probation and told to pay his income taxes or next time he would be charged with tax evasion, a felony. The charge, a misdemeanor, was adjudicated in U.S. In 1973, he was arrested by IRS agents for submitting false information on his employer's W-4 (tax withholding) Form, claiming 10 dependents. Mathews also joined an income-tax-resistance movement. Sons of Liberty had at its peak approximately 25 members. After dropping out of high school in his senior year, Mathews formed the Sons of Liberty, an anti-communist militia dominated by survivalists and fellow Mormons. He developed an interest in conservative politics at a young age, joining the right-wing John Birch Society at age 11, the Mormon Church, and later, the Young Republicans. Air Force officer, was born in Marfa, Texas, and grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. Robert Jay Mathews (1953-1984), the son of a retired U.S. The last defendant will go to trial in Missouri for murdering a state trooper. They will be sentenced to terms ranging from 40 to 100 years in federal prison. Ten of the defendants will go to trial and be found guilty of racketeering, conspiracy, and other offenses, including counterfeiting, armed robbery, and murder. Twelve of the defendants will plead guilty before trial and many will become government witnesses. The Order's legacy of terror will end on April 15, 1985, when 23 members of the gang are indicted by a federal grand jury in Seattle and arrested by the FBI. He has been the object of an intense manhunt since November 24, 1984, when he escaped from the FBI in Portland, Oregon, after wounding an agent in the leg. On December 8, 1984, Robert Jay Mathews, founder of the violent white-supremist group The Order, is killed in a house fire near Smuggler's Cove on Whidbey Island after a 35-hour standoff with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

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