'Alaskan Bush People' Deny Wrongdoing In Felony Falsification Charges — After Pleading Guilty
May 12 2016, Published 10:06 a.m. ET
Billy Brown is taking back his public apology in the reality TV family's falsification and theft case.
Though the Alaskan Bush People patriarch, 62, pled guilty to lying on his state dividend applications in order to receive government checks, he staunchly denies any wrongdoing in a shocking new video.
"I would never cheat Alaska!" he insists in the clip.
Billy only took the guilty plea, he explains, in order for the court to dismiss charges against wife Ami, 53, and three of the couple's other sons. (Josh "Bam Bam" Brown, 31, pled guilty like his father, and was similarly sentenced to 30 days in jail.)
"When it came to jeopardizing the family, we just gave them what they wanted. It's the lesser of two evils, is the way I looked at it," he says. "It was, 'sign the statement and this is over and my family was left alone,' or 'don't sign the statement, and they're going to keep this dragging on and on and on.'"
The narrator then states that despite the court's claims the Browns lived in the lower 48 states during much of the past several years, the family has lived in Alaska for more than 30 years.
Bam Bam argues that they just didn't have "evidence" of their residency and travels because they don't "fly or ferry."
However, in a November 2015 court hearing, Billy's attorney, James McGowan, admitted the Browns had moved.
"They ended up spending a lot more time down south," he told the judge, according to the Alaska Dispatch News.
Billy goes off, implying the court was simply judgmental of their transient, outdoors lifestyle.
"Nobody needs to care were we went what we did," he fumes. "It is every American's God-given right to live however they want to live. Independent, that's America, man!"
Americans can live where they want to live— but as RadarOnline.com reported, the Browns swore they lived in Alaska more than 180 days a year on applications to earn nearly $27,000 of the state's oil revenue, which is a crime.
Now, Billy and Bam Bam are serving out their jail sentences at home under electric monitoring.
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A new episode of the Discovery reality show airs on Friday.
