WOMAN DEFENDS FREEMEN : PALMDALE RESIDENT SAYS FBI BREAKS LAW.

Byline: Bhavna Mistry Daily News Staff Writer

A Palmdale woman linked to the anti-government Freemen based in Montana appeared at a news conference Tuesday to deny any wrongdoing and assert that it is not she but the FBI that should be investigated.

A day after avoiding a court hearing on a restraining order that would bar her from distributing what federal officials contend are worthless checks, Elizabeth Broderick appeared before reporters and camera crews at a five-minute news conference at the Los Angeles Airport Hilton and Towers.

``I have never been charged with a crime, I have not been arrested, there have been no indictments, and there will be none,'' Broderick, 53, said.

``I am a woman of the land, not subject to the corporate United States and its agencies like the FBI and the U.S. District Court,'' she said. ``The fraud is the U.S. military, FBI and the Secret Service, all those people who don't follow the law.''

Broderick, accompanied by a woman she described as her ``co-counsel,'' spoke the morning after a federal judge postponed until Thursday a hearing against Broderick and two associates on a restraining order sought by the U.S. Attorney's Office.

The judge postponed the hearing because none of the three appeared, officials said.

Federal attorneys want the court to order Broderick to stop printing and distributing checks she states are ``comptroller's warrants'' or ``certified banker's checks'' issued against the U.S. government for money she claims it owes her.

Federal attorneys allege Broderick has already distributed more than $30 million to people who attended seminars in which she tells people how to use the warrants to pay off debts and make purchases.

The FBI in January said it was investigating five Antelope Valley residents who attended Broderick's seminars and then attempted to use the checks to pay for 10 Cadillacs and four motor homes, to bail a person out of jail, and to pay off large debts.

Last week, FBI agents served search warrants at Broderick's Palmdale home, office and several rooms at the Essex House in Lancaster, where she had conducted seminars. They seized Broderick's computers, fax machines and hundreds of documents.

The local searches came simultaneously with FBI action against an anti-government organization called the Freemen near Jordan, Mont. Broderick confirmed Tuesday she had attended a seminar given by LeRoy Schweitzer, who was among those who were arrested.

Other members of the Freemen continued a nine-day standoff in the group's isolated compound, surrounded by FBI agents and local authorities.

The Freemen reject almost all government authority and consider themselves a sovereign nation with their own laws and courts.

While Broderick did not say whether she plans to continue with her seminars scheduled Sunday and Monday at the Essex House, she issued a warning during the press conference to those she said had been talking and writing about her.

``I want to give notice in grace right now to the individuals who have so brutally victimized my staff and slandered me and my credit,'' Broderick said. ``You are being sued in the Supreme Court of the United States of America.''