“We’re not terrorists,” said Phil Merletti, who is one of four members of the Maine Constitution Coalition. “If I had the money, Mike Tipping would be in court right now. This is a travesty to my rights as a human being.”

Merletti and his colleagues on the coalition take their definition of what those rights are from a strict interpretation of the original U.S. Constitution and the unamended version of Maine’s constitution from 1820. They strongly defend property rights — including that property owners are justified in shooting trespassers — and claim that county sheriffs should be the state’s top law enforcement officials, that constitutional amendments are “repugnant” and that the nation’s monetary system has been invalidated.

Two other members of the Maine Constitution Coalition, Wayne Leach and Gary Smart, also told the Bangor Daily News on Tuesday that their group has no links to violent confrontations across the country that have been carried out in the name of a movement called the Sovereign Citizens. The coalition’s fourth member in Maine, Jack McCarthy, whose comments on a talk radio show provided some of Tipping’s fodder, could not be reached for comment.

At issue are some 16 hours of meetings coalition members had with LePage in 2013. Tipping, a communications director for the Maine People’s Alliance whose blog is hosted by the BDN, has written a book called “As Maine Went: Governor Paul LePage and the Tea Party Takeover of Maine” that asserts the coalition has ties to the Sovereign Citizens, which the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Maine State Police consider part of a domestic terrorist movement.