HUTCHINSON, Kan. – The 53-year-old Hutchinson man who held police at bay for nearly nine hours on the Fourth of July has been indicted by the feds.
Senior Assistant District Attorney Steve Maxwell had announced in open court Wednesday that the case against Thomas Fee was going federal and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Wichita made it official with a public announcement.
Fee is charged in federal court with one count of unlawful possession of a machine gun and one count of unlawful possession of a silencer. If convicted he faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000 on the machine gun count and a maximum penalty of 10 years and a fine up to $10,000 on the other count.
The federal charges are a result of police finding weapons and several thousand rounds of ammunition in two safes in a garage that Fee was renting for storage.
Fee is still scheduled for a probation violation hearing in District Court on Friday for a felony DUI conviction.