BIDDEFORD (AP) – An armed militia is offering its assistance to Biddeford resident Dorothy Lafortune in her fight to keep her house.

A leader of an Alabama-based group called the Mutual Defense Pact Militia urged members this week to be ready to come to Maine with enough supplies for a 10-day engagement. Police and public safety officials said they are aware of the threat and take it seriously.

Law enforcement officials are monitoring the situation, Maine Public Safety Commissioner Michael Cantara said Wednesday.

“We’re aware of the various e-mails and messages and are monitoring the situation. People have a First Amendment right to speak, but their behavior determines whether or not it calls for a law enforcement response,” he said.

Lafortune has waged an unsuccessful legal battle to keep her home for more than a year. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to halt the seizure of the three-family home on Graham Street.

Acting as her own attorney, Lafortune claimed that the foreclosure was being carried out in retaliation for her local call-in show on the city’s public-access cable TV channel.

The show was taken off the air by city officials.

In October, the state supreme court ruled Lafortune no longer owns the property, which was seized by the city for non-payment of taxes and auctioned to Portland resident Tim Q. Ly for $80,000.

Floyd Shackelford, a leader of the Mutual Defense Pact Militia, told the Journal Tribune that his group doesn’t want violence, but is defending Lafortune because she hasn’t had a jury trial. “She said if a jury rules against her, she will leave voluntarily,” Shackelford said in a telephone interview.

But a message sent to the group’s members Tuesday suggested they would be armed and ready for confrontation. It suggested members surround Lafortune’s house and be prepared to offer “direct fire support.”

AP-ES-11-12-03 1324EST