Members of white supremacist family arrested on weapons charges at Arizona ranch

Two members of a purported white supremacist family who apparently once tried to set up a whites-only nation were arrested Monday in a weapons raid on their central Arizona ranch.

Federal authorities said they were tipped off that Kirby Kehoe, 65, had a weapons cache on his 40-acre property near Ash Fork, reported The Associated Press.

Because family members had previously been involved in violent confrontations with law enforcement, agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said they placed the property under surveillance before executing search warrants with heavily armed tactical teams and armored vehicles.

Agents said they seized dozens of guns, including shotguns and semi-automatic rifles and handguns, and arrested the elder Kehoe at the ranch.

His son, 37-year-old Cheyne Kehoe, was arrested later in Prescott, where he had a scheduled court appearance in an unrelated case.

Both men have previous felony convictions and are banned from owning firearms.

The Kehoes appeared Tuesday in court in Flagstaff on one count each, but authorities said they could face additional weapons and narcotics charges in connection with the raid.

The Kehoe family is accused of providing weapons to white supremacists who committed robberies across the Midwest in the 1990s, and authorities said they plotted to overthrow the federal government and establish the Aryan Peoples Republic in the Pacific Northwest.

Another son, Chevie Kehoe, is serving a life sentence for his role in the 1996 slayings of an Arkansas gun dealer, his wife and their 8-year-old daughter as part of the plot.

Cheyne Kehoe served time in prison in connection with a 1997 shootout with police near Cincinnati that wounded a passer-by and Kirby Kehoe was sentenced in 1999 to nearly four years in prison on racketeering and weapons charges.

The elder Kehoe insists he was never involved in his sons’ plot to establish a whites-only nation and says he’s not a racist.

[Skinhead white supremacist via Flickr]