Texas Separatist Leaders Get Prison Terms

ALPINE, Texas — Republic of Texas leader Richard McLaren was sentenced Tuesday to 99 years in prison and his top lieutenant got 50 years for plotting an abduction that led to a weeklong standoff with police.

McLaren and Robert Otto, whose group says it believes that Texas is not part of the United States, were the first two of five members to be tried in the April 27 abduction of Joe and Margaret Ann Rowe.

The kidnapping eventually brought about 300 state troopers and Texas Rangers to the remote west Texas resort where the Republic of Texas maintained its headquarters. They laid siege to the group’s so-called embassy until McLaren and others agreed to surrender their weapons May 3.

Judge Kenneth DeHart sentenced the separatists after hearing testimony in the punishment phase from several prosecution witnesses, including Texas Rangers, the Rowes and three friends of Otto’s who appeared on his behalf. No one spoke for McLaren.

Joe Rowe told the court he now carries a gun at all times. Margaret Ann Rowe recalled that, as she watched the separatists leave, “I didn’t know that maybe they wouldn’t shoot us anyway.” The Rowes lived near Republic members in the Davis Mountains Resort, a rural community 175 miles southeast of El Paso.

On Friday, a jury convicted McLaren and Otto of engaging in organized criminal activity for their role in the kidnapping.