April trial for Yuba County tax protesters
An April trial date has been set for two Wheatland brothers accused of obstructing Yuba County sheriff's deputies during a tax protest in April.
Benjamin and Russell Bartholomew have pleaded not guilty and are due back in court March 9 for trial confirmation, the Yuba County District Attorney's Office reported. Judge Steven W. Berrier ordered the jury trial to begin April 3 in Yuba County Superior Court.
The brothers were arrested April 28 after hanging a 20-foot sign stating "Taxes = Theft" from a Highway 70 overpass near Erle Road, south of Marysville. Both were wearing Guy Fawkes masks and called it "political theater" designed to assert their anti-tax philosophy.
"We are being punished for exercising our First Amendment rights to protest government tax policy," Benjamin Bartholomew recently claimed in a prepared statement.
Sheriff's deputies said the men refused to give their names or remove their masks for several minutes and only did so after they were told they were under arrest, the Sheriff's Department said.
