ATTACHMENT A 

United States v. Winston Shrout 

3:15-cr-00438-JO 

Updated IRS Tax Loss Calculations 

IRS Forms 4549-A, Income Tax Examination Changes 

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 1 of 149







ATTACHMENT B 

United States v. Winston Shrout 

3:15-cr-00438-JO 

Portions of Trial Transcript from 

United States v. April J. Rampton

2:11-cr-812 (D. UT 2012) 

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 9 of 149
 678

 1 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

 2 DISTRICT OF UTAH 

 3 CENTRAL DIVISION 

 4

 5 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) 

 6 Plaintiff, ) 

 7 vs. ) CASE NO. 2:11-CR-812DB 

 8 APRIL J. RAMPTON, ) 

 9 Defendant. ) 

10 ______________________________) 

11 

12 

13 BEFORE THE HONORABLE DEE BENSON 

14 ------------------------------- 

15 December 14, 2012 

16 Jury Trial 

17 Volume V 

18 

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment B, Page 1 of 7

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 10 of 149
 679

 1 A P P E A R A N C E S 

 2

 3

For Plaintiff: MICHAEL J. ROMANO 

 4 STUART A. WEXLER 

 601 D Street, N.W. 

 5 Washington, D.C. 

 

 6 

 

 7 

 8 

 9 

10 

For Defendant: ROBERT L. STEELE 

11 KRISTEN R. ANGELOS 

 46 West Broadway 

12 Suite 110 

 Salt Lake City, Utah 

13 

 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 Court Reporter: Ed Young 

 247 U.S. Courthouse 

24 350 South Main Street 

 Salt Lake City, Utah 84101-2180 

25 801-328-3202 

Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment B, Page 2 of 7

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 11 of 149
 680

 1 I N D E X 

 2 

 3 Witness Examination By Page 

------- -------------- ---- 

 4 

Nancy Phillips Ms. Angelos (Cross) 683 

 5 Nancy Phillips Mr. Romano (Redirect) 693 

Nancy Phillips Ms. Angelos (Recross) 696 

 6 

Casey Hill Mr. Romano (Direct) 697 

 7 Casey Hill Ms. Angelos (Cross) 708 

Casey Hill Mr. Romano (Redirect) 711 

 8 

Kristy Morgan Mr. Wexler (Direct) 712 

 9 Kristy Morgan Mr. Steele (Cross) 769 

Kristy Morgan Mr. Wexler (Redirect) 779 

10 

Bjorn Sundell Mr. Romano (Direct) 782 

11 Bjorn Sundell Mr. Steele (Cross) 815 

12 April Rampton Ms. Angelos (Direct) 836 

13 

14 

15 

Exhibit Received 

16 ------- -------- 

17 Defendant's Exhibit E 684 

Plaintiff's Exhibit 1-91 721 

18 Plaintiff's Exhibit 1-85 768 

Defendant's Exhibit B 779 

19 Plaintiff's Exhibit 16-8 786 

Plaintiff's Exhibit 16-7 788 

20 

21 

22

23

24

25

Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment B, Page 3 of 7

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 12 of 149
 844

 1 problems with the I.R.S. with your taxes prior to this

 2 1099-OID filing in 2008?

 3 A. Never.

 4 Q. At some point the meeting ended and everyone left.

 5 What did you think about what had been said in the meeting?

 6 A. I thought it was absolutely an answer to prayer. I had

 7 been trying to figure out how to provide for my children,

 8 and I couldn't wait to find out and go and do it so that I

 9 could provide for my children.

10 Q. You heard testimony from Ernie Jessop earlier this week

11 that he came out skeptical. Why did you get a different

12 impression than Ernie?

13 A. Because I do Ernie's taxes. He is not a tax guy, and I

14 think because I was familiar with taxes and he was not, that

15 all of it sounded like gobbledygook to Ernie.

16 Q. So you had a better understanding -- 

17 A. A much better understanding.

18 Q. Did the fact that Tony was your dad's friend lend some

19 credibility to him and what he was saying?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Why?

22 A. Because I trust my dad and I love my dad. He has not

23 ever been able to help me financially, but I knew that this

24 was something that he believed in and that he could

25 introduce me to, so I didn't question Tony because of the

Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment B, Page 4 of 7

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 13 of 149
 845

 1 connection with my dad.

 2 Q. What is your relationship with your father?

 3 A. I love my dad. He is my dad even though he is not

 4 biologically mine. We don't believe in steps in my family,

 5 and I think you're either family or you're not, and even

 6 though he has only been my dad since I was eight, he is the

 7 only dad that I ever knew.

 8 Q. Describe him. What is his demeanor like? What is your

 9 dad like?

10 A. My dad is from the south and so he is very

11 chauvinistic. I am the wrong gendered child. He gets along

12 with his sons much better than he gets along with his

13 daughters. We just haven't ever -- like I say, I'm a girl

14 and he does not deal well with girls.

15 Q. Is that hard for you?

16 A. Yeah. I have always wanted to make my dad happy. I

17 have always wanted to be able to have the same relationship

18 with him that he has with his oldest son. I am his oldest

19 child.

20 Q. Prior to this meeting had you ever heard of the

21 1099-OID process before?

22 A. I had not.

23 Q. After this meeting what do you do next?

24 A. I was staying at my parents' house and we went back to

25 my parents' house, and as we loaded up getting ready to go

Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment B, Page 5 of 7

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 14 of 149
 846

 1 back to Heber City I asked my dad, Dad, is this really

 2 legitimate? Is this legal? Is this going to pay off my

 3 house? He said absolutely, 100 percent.

 4 Q. Did the fact that your dad was telling you that this

 5 1099-OID process was legal have any impact on you?

 6 A. I'm sorry. Can you wait one minute? 

 7 Repeat the question.

 8 Q. Yes. Did the fact that your dad was telling you that

 9 the program was legal have any impact on you?

10 A. Absolutely. I wouldn't have done it if I had been told

11 in any way that it was illegal.

12 Q. We have had some discussions before and you have talked

13 about your dad being the head of the household. Explain

14 what that means to you.

15 A. What dad says goes. It always has. He is very, very

16 assertive that way.

17 Q. I should ask, are you aware that your father teaches

18 seminars all around the country?

19 A. I do. I know he teaches seminars. I have never

20 attended one, but I know that that is what he does since he

21 retired.

22 Q. What did your dad prior to retirement for a job?

23 A. He was a foreman for the Mercury Nevada nuclear test

24 site.

25 Q. At this point you have met with Tony and you have had

Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment B, Page 6 of 7

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 15 of 149
 847

 1 it validated by your father, and what is your impression of

 2 the 1099-OID tax process?

 3 A. That it was a completely legal program, that this was

 4 something that the banks had been doing that they were

 5 profiting from and we were not, and that this was something

 6 that was going to allow the I.R.S. to actually make things

 7 right and stop the bank fraud.

 8 Q. So what do you do next?

 9 A. When?

10 Q. After this meeting with Tony and after talking with

11 your dad, what is the next step that you took as far as the

12 1099-OID process?

13 A. We traveled home to Heber and within the next day or

14 two -- I think it was really late when we got home, so the

15 next day I went on the I.R.S. Web site to get the forms.

16 Q. I should ask you, and walk me through this, when you

17 got to the I.R.S. Web site what exactly did you do when you

18 got there?

19 A. You go onto, you know, I.R.S. dot gov and you go to

20 taxes forms and publications and then to whatever year you

21 need, and then click on all of that and it brought up the

22 1099-OID form.

23 Q. Let me ask you this. This occurred in June -- May and

24 June of 2008? 

25 A. The tail end of May, first part of June. 

Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment B, Page 7 of 7

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 16 of 149
ATTACHMENT C 

United States v. Winston Shrout 

3:15-cr-00438-JO 

List of Cases Related to Winston Shrout and 

Winston Shrout Solutions in Commerce 

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 17 of 149
Defendant Name Case Name District Case Citation Year of Judgment Judgment Docket Number Sente

Michael Curley US v Curley MD 8:11-cr-00128 2012 32 30 monRonald Croteau US v. Croteau MD FL 2:13-cr-00121 2015 170 56 monMichael Lavery US v. Lavery UT 2:12-cr-00050 2014 46 6 monthStanley Wardle US v. Wardle UT 2:12-cr-00073 2014 129 33 monDennis Alexio US v. Alexio et al. HI 1:13-cr-01018 2017 312 120 moHakeem El Bey US v. El Bey ND IL 1:14-cr-00447-1 2018 196 28 monMiles Julison US v. Julison OR 3:11-cr-00378 2013 250 48 monPeter Hesser US v. Hesser MD FL 2:11-cr-00083 2015 151 3 yearsSherilyn Wahinekapu US v. Wahinekapu HI 1:12-cr-00375 2014 63 42 MonFrancis Chandler US v Chandler, III HI 1:12-cr-01258 2014 44 37 MonRonald Brekke US v. Brekke et al. WD WA 2:10-cr-00328 2012 294 144 moWonita Chung US v. Brekke et al. WD WA 2:10-cr-00328 2012 177 18 monJason McGuire US v. McGuire et al. ED MI 2:11-cr-20750 2014 249 63 monDelvin Davis US v. McGuire et al. ED MI 2:11-cr-20750 2014 250 42 monGaylene Bolanos US v. Bolanos et al. ED CA 1:13-cr-00362 2016 404 120 MoMichael Beiter US v. Jones et al. SD FL 0:11-cr-60273 2013 716 25 yearDavid Clum US v. Jones et al. SD FL 0:11-cr-60273 2013 717 293 moChristopher Marrero US v. Jones et al. SD FL 0:11-cr-60273 2013 715 180 moGerrit Timmerman US v. Timmerman et al UT 2:13-cr-00045 2015 353 4 years

Sharon Anzaldi US v. Anzaldi et al. ND IL 1:11-cr-00820-1 2014 218 63 mon

Phillip Desalvo US v. Anzaldi et al. ND IL 1:11-cr-00820-2 2013 191 30 mon

Steven Latin US v. Anzaldi et al. ND IL 1:11-cr-00820-3 2013 193 18 mon

Gaetano Fiore US v. Fiore NV 2:11-cr-00208 2012 39 30 mon

Penny Jones US v. Jones et al. SD FL 0:11-cr-60273 2013 709 144 mo

Thomas A. Johnson US v. Johnson et al MD 8:10-cr-00102 2010 140 60 mon

Harry J. Williams US v. Johnson et al MD 8:10-cr-00102 2010 138 72 mon

Russell Trauger US v. Trauger MD PA 3:12-cr-00275 2016 35 24 mon

Teresa Marty US v. Marty et al. ED CA 2:13-cr-00217 2017 201 120 mo

United States v. Winston Shrout

3:15-cr-00438

List of Related Cases

US v. Shrout, 3:15-cr-00438 List of Related Cases 

Government's Sentencing Memorandum 

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 18 of 149
ATTACHMENT D 

United States v. Winston Shrout 

3:15-cr-00438-JO 

Letter from Dr. James Pelton, MD 

Western Regional Medical Director 

Federal Bureau of Prisons 

re: 

BOP’s capacity to accommodate Winston Shrout’s 

mental and physical condition 

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 19 of 149
VIA EMAIL 

Stuart A. Wexler 

Trial Attorney, Western Criminal Enforcement 

U.S. Department of Justice, Tax Division 

601 D Street NW, Room 7028 

Washington, DC 20004 

U.S. Department of Justice 

Federal Bureau of Prisons 

Western Regional Medical Director 

October 3, 2018 

RE: United States v. Winston Shrout, 15-cr-00438-JO (D. Or.) 

Health Issues/Medical Care available within the Federal Bureau of Prisons 

Dear Mr. Wexler: 

I am writing in response to the request from the United States Attorney's Office concerning the 

medical conditions of the defendant Winston Shrout, and the ability of the Federal Bureau of 

Prisons (BOP) to provide adequate medical care for defendant as an inmate. In my role as the 

Regional Medical Director for the Federal Bureau of Prisons (Western Region), I am 

occasionally called upon to make presentence reviews such as you have requested. 

I am a board certified internist employed by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. As the Regional 

Medical Director, I am responsible for overseeing delivery of medical care in the Region and 

advising other BOP physicians in the management of especially difficult or complicated cases. I 

received a BA from Duke University, attended medical school at the University of Southern 

California and completed a residency in internal medicine through the University of California, 

Los Angeles. I have been employed by the BOP since July of 1997. During this time, I have 

cared for many inmates with complex medical conditions. I am currently licensed to practice 

medicine in the States of California, Colorado, and North Carolina. 

I have reviewed the medical documents provided by you. Specifically, you provided a 20-page 

evaluation from Alexander M. Milley, PsyD; a 20-page evaluation from C. Chyrelle Martin, 

PsyD; and a 31-page report and one-page addendum from Stephanie Maya Lopez, MD. All 

three aforementioned reports concerned Mr. Shrout's psychological state and his ability to stand 

trial. Also contained within the reports were summaries of Mr. Shrout' s medical conditions. 

Dr. Lopez diagnosed Mr. Shrout with no mental disorder, disease, or defect. Dr. Martin 

diagnosed Mr. Shrout with delusional disorder but expressly ruled out schizophrenia. Dr. 

Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment D, Page 1 of 3

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 20 of 149
Millkey diagnosed Mr. Shrout with delusional disorder. The reports generally depicted Mr. 

Shrout as intelligent or above-intelligent and well-functioning, notwithstanding his delusional 

beliefs. Mr. Shrout was also described as using an ambulatory aid, having undergone hernia and 

hip-replacement surgery, and self-reporting moderate-to-severe chronic pain. 

The BOP is entirely capable of managing Mr. Shrout's physical and mental health care needs. 

Over 18,000 BOP inmates (approximately 10% of the BOP population) have major 

psychological diagnoses. Management of inmates with conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar 

disorder, and major depressive disorder are considered routine. These conditions are managed as 

a function of the Health Services and Psychology Services Departments working together and in 

tandem to manage patient care. Further, chronic orthopedic problems such as those due to hip 

replacement are commonly encountered in BOP facilities. Mr. Shrout's delusional disorder does 

not appear to impair his general functioning or ability to perform basic life function, and would 

not significantly impact his medical classification. Similar, his orthopedic pain can be properly 

managed ay any BOP facility. 

The BOP Formulary, as with many health care systems, provides a standardized list of approved, 

appropriate medications. There are several medications of varying types and strengths which 

could be provided to Mr. Shrout for pain management, and, if necessary, psychiatric treatment. 

Further, there is a mechanism available to our local health care providers to obtain nonFormulary medications when they determine that it is medically appropriate. 

The Bureau of Prisons is committed to providing inmates in its custody with quality medical care 

that is consistent with community standards. The BOP classifies its institutions according to the 

medical resources available on a one-to-four scale. Level-I institutions house essentially healthy 

inmates. Level-2 institutions accept inmates with chronic, but stable medical conditions. Level-3 

institutions manage inmates with potentially unstable medical problems. Level-4 institutions are 

medical referral centers (FM Cs). These resources are more specifically described in the Legal 

Guide to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (2014) at pages 25-26. Every institution maintains a 

Health Services Unit to provide medical, dental, and mental health care. BOP policy regarding 

medical care and procedures for caring for inmates with medical needs is set forth in federal 

regulations at 28 C.F.R. §549, and Program Statement (PS) 6031.03, Patient Care. Service is 

provided by a variety of health care professionals, including psychiatrists, physicians, nurses, 

physician assistants, dieticians, dentists, and pharmacists. BOP health care staff is augmented by 

assigned United States Public Health Service personnel. Community medical professionals are 

consulted as needed, and inmates are sent to community hospitals should medically necessary 

care be unavailable at the institution. See PS 60 I 0.02, Health Services Administration. 

If the defendant is sentenced to a term of imprisonment, when the designation request is 

forwarded to the BOP from the U.S. Probation Office and the U.S. Marshal, medical records can 

be forwarded to the BOP with a request for the designation to be forwarded to the BOP Medical 

Designator. Designation decisions take into consideration multiple factors, including security 

level and medical treatment needs. Initial designations are made for inmates who have recently 

been sentenced by the Court. Inmates with an acute medical/psychiatric problem(s), or those 

with chronic care requirements, are referred by the Designation and Sentence Computation 

Center (DSCC) to the Medical Designator (OMDT) for an initial designation. The mission of 

OMDT is to effect the timely and efficient designations and movements of inmates with health 

Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment D, Page 2 of 3

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 21 of 149
care needs from initial commitment or from current institution to locations that possess the 

required health care resources while meeting the community standard of medical care. This 

includes the determination of appropriate security assignment of the inmate and type of 

transportation to be used. The Medical Designator makes designations, referrals, and denials 

based on urgency of need, cost-effectiveness, Bureau institution capabilities, expected service 

period, including recuperation, current bed space availability, security requirements, and 

consultation with Bureau physicians at the sending and receiving institutions. 

Based upon my review of the medical records for Mr. Shrout and my expertise as a physician 

with knowledge of BOP medical facilities, it is my opinion the BOP can provide appropriate 

medical care for Mr. Shrout. He would most likely be designated as a Care Level-2 inmate. I 

trust this information satisfies your concerns. Please feel free to contact me if I may be of further 

assistance in this matter. 

Sir!J6l 1 ~ _;!) 

James Pelton, MD 

Western Regional Medical Director 

Federal Bureau of Prisons 

Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment D, Page 3 of 3

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 22 of 149
ATTACHMENT E 

United States v. Winston Shrout 

3:15-cr-00438-JO 

‘Sovereign Citizens’ 

Intelligence Report 

The Southern Poverty Law Center (2010) 

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 23 of 149
‘sovereign’ leadership

Profiles of top activists

tips for law enforcement

Sovereign danger signs

‘sovereign’ dictionary

Decoding the bizarre

The conspiratorial ideology behind a double cop-killer is spreading rapidl

‘SOVEREIGN’ 

CITIZENS

P

ROLL CALL VIDEO ON 

‘SOVEREIGN CITIZEN’ THREAT

j

E

SPECIAL ISSUE

Intelligence Report published by 

The Southern Poverty Law 

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 24 of 149
EDITORIAL

Understanding the Threat: 

‘Sovereign’ Citizens & the Law

By Mark Po

law enforcement officers face

a myriad of potential threats every 

day they are on the streets. Do they 

now need to know about a bizarre 

extreme-right movement whose 

members believe they don’t have 

to pay taxes, obey federal laws, or 

have driver’s licenses and vehicle 

registrations?

The answer is most definitely 

yes. As was demonstrated tragically on May 20, 2010, in West Memphis, Ark. — where a 

father-and-son team of self-described “sovereign citizens” 

murdered two police officers during a traffic stop and badly 

wounded two others before being shot to death themselves — 

advance knowledge in such situations can make the difference 

between life and death. “My men didn’t realize who or what 

they were dealing with,” West Memphis Chief Bob Paudert 

told the Intelligence Report. “Maybe if they had, they’d be alive 

today. One of those officers was my son.”

Jerry and Joseph Kane, the killers of Brandon Paudert and 

Bill Evans, were true believers in the nonsensical theories of 

the sovereign citizens. Though it is tempting to dismiss the 

violence they initiated in West Memphis as an isolated event 

unrelated to political ideology — an unstable father and son 

who exploded in a moment of savage but unexplainable fury 

— the truth is more frightening. The Kanes, in fact, were products of the sovereign citizens movement who crisscrossed the 

country giving seminars on fraudulent methods of escaping 

debts and foreclosures. In one of them, captured on videotape, 

Jerry Kane can be heard saying that he was tired of authorities who “keep messing with me,” adding that he might have 

to kill one. “And if I have to kill one, then I’m not going to be 

able to stop,” Kane said.

The fact is that the sovereign citizens movement is growing 

fast. And while most adherents are certainly not violent, experience has shown time and again that when cornered, some 

will lash out in rage, frustration and, in the most extreme 

cases, acts of deadly violence. The double murder in West 

Memphis was not the only sovereign-officer conflict to have 

ended in death.

This special edition of the Intelligence Report — a slightly 

edited reprint of the Fall 2010 cover story in the magazine 

— describes the beliefs of the sovereign citizens movement, 

provides profiles of its principal leaders and offers tips to help 

law enforcement officers spot sovereigns. Bound into the issue 

is a copy of the officer-safety roll-call video — “‘Sovereign 

Citizens’ and Law Enforcement: Understanding the Threat” 

— that we subsequently produced and distributed to thousands of law enforcement officers. (The video is narrated by 

West Memphis Chief Paudert and Jim Cavanaugh, a retired 

special agent in charge for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, 

Firearms and Explosives with extensive experience of the 

radical right.) Our hope is that these materials will help save 

lives of our men and women in blue.

Officers around the country have been reporting increased 

contact with sovereign citizens since the West Memphis 

slayings, and many are understandably baffled by the fake 

driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations that sovereigns 

often present. Many have been served bizarre documents, 

some fingerprinted in red ink, entitled “Truth Affidavits” or 

“Certificate of Standing & Capacity.” Other officers, along with 

many judicial officials, have had illegal liens placed against 

their personal property by sovereigns seeking revenge.

It is difficult to say precisely how many sovereigns there 

are in the United States today, in part because there is no central leadership and few organized groups that adherents can 

join. Instead, there is an array of local leaders with individualized and often differing takes on sovereign citizen ideology 

and techniques. Some of those attracted to the movement 

merely dabble in the ideology’s techniques, while others 

take the IRS on directly as tax protesters. But tax expert J.J. 

MacNab, the author of the report that follows, estimates there 

are about 100,000 hard-core sovereigns today, with another 

200,000 essentially testing out sovereign techniques for 

resisting everything from speeding tickets to drug charges. As 

sovereign theories go viral throughout the nation’s prison systems and among people who are unemployed and desperate in 

a punishing recession, that number is likely to grow.

The problem is serious enough that the U.S. Department 

of Justice introduced the National Tax Defier Initiative in 

2008 to target movement leaders. In February 2009, the FBI 

launched its own national operation targeting “militia/sovereign citizen extremist groups,” as well as other types of radical 

organizations, after noting a major upsurge in such groups.

Jerry Kane and his young son were active participants in 

this sprawling subculture, and when they came into contact 

with police officers during a routine traffic stop, they chose to 

open fire without provocation. We hope that this special issue 

will help prevent similar tragedies in the future. s

Intelligence Report editor/intelligence project dire

Mark Potok

Director of Resea

Heidi Beirich

deputy edit

Robert Steinback

staff write

Ryan Lenz, Leah Nelson, Evelyn Schlatter

chief investigat

Joseph Roy Sr.

senior intelligence analy

Laurie Wood

information mana

Michelle Bramblett

research analyst

Anthony Griggs, Janet Smith

program associa

Karla Griffin

researchers

Angela Freeman, Karmetriya Jackson

design directo

Russell Estes

designers

Valerie Downes, Michelle Leland, Scott Phillips

design production assist

Sunny Paulk

web production direct

Ryan King

web productio

Chris Pow

media and general inquiries Mark Poto

law enforcement inquiries Joseph Roy S

subscription requests Karla Griff

Southern Poverty Law Center

400 Washington Ave. • Montgomery, AL 36104

(334) 956-8200 • www.intelligencereport.org

Published by 

The Southern Poverty Law Cen

Intelligence Pr

southern poverty law center presi

J. Richard Cohen

southern poverty law center found

Morris Dees

Joseph J. Levin Jr.

southern poverty law center board of direc

Howard Mandell, Chair

Julian Bond, Andrew Fredman, 

Lloyd “Vic” Hackley, Alan Howard, Marsha Levick, 

James McElroy, Vanzetta McPherson, 

James Rucker, Ellen Sudow, David Wang

The Intelligence Report is published quarterly by the staff of the Intelligence 

Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center and provided free of charge to law 

enforcement officials, journalists, scholars and others. The Southern Poverty 

Law Center is supported entirely by private donations. No government funds are 

involved. © 2011 Southern Poverty Law Center. All rights reserved.

2 ‘Sovereign’ Citizen Ka

On May 20, 2010, a man and his son opened fire on police 

officers in West Memphis, Ark., killing two and wounding 

two others before being killed themselves. Cop-killers Jerry 

and Joe Kane were members of the rapidly growing “sovereign citizens” movement that may now be 300,000 strong.

8 Murdered Officers Part of Deadly 

Since 1990, law enforcement officers have comprised nearly 15% of 

the victims of far-right killings.

10 The ‘Sovereign’ Leaders

A dozen leaders of the contemporary “sovereign citizens” movement—some of them promoters of the so-called “redemption” 

scam—are profiled.

13  ‘Sovereign’ Diction

Adherents of the “sovereign citizens” movement are known for their 

bizarre use of language and Byzantine belief system.

14 Tips for Law Enforcem

Common traits of “sovereign citizens” that law enforcement officers can 

and should be on the alert for.

16 Message from Chief Bob Pau

The chief discusses the threat “sovereign citizens” pose to law 

enforcement and why awareness is so important.

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 25 of 149
2 splc intelligence report

Cop-killers Jerry and Joe 

Kane were members of a 

rapidly growing radicalright movement that may 

now be 300,000 strong

‘Sovereign’ 

Citizen

By J.J. Ma

Kane

The moment of truth: 16-year-old Joe Kane as he opens fire on two Arkansas police office

special report 3

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 26 of 149
youtube video

Mike Douglas/The Evening Tim

t had been one of 

those mornings 

for West Memphis, 

Ark., police 

officers Brandon 

Paudert and Bill 

Evans. By 11:00 on May 20, 

2010 they’d already spent 

three hours monitoring 

a suspicious rental truck 

and vehicle with Arizona 

license plates parked 

at a local motel, trying 

to determine whether 

the truck contained 

a shipment of illegal 

drugs. As members 

of the West Memphis 

Police Department’s drug 

interdiction team, their job was to stop 

the seemingly endless flow of narcotics 

that passed through their town on busy 

Interstate 40. Officer Paudert called it 

in, and the West Memphis chief of police 

arrived at the scene to assess the situation.

When it was discovered that the truck and car was nothing 

more sinister than a grandmother moving her family, the goodnatured ribbing began. After all, the chief of police was not just 

the officers’ boss; he was Brandon Paudert’s father.

“I told them to get off their butts and get back on the interstate,” 

Chief Bob Paudert recounted later. “They were really laughing.”

Chagrined, Paudert and Evans returned to I-40, watching 

for signs of drugs on the move through their jurisdiction. When 

Evans spied a white minivan with unusual Ohio license plates, 

he pulled the van over at the exit near Mile Marker 275, and 

called his partner for backup. Safety came first, and in the dangerous world of drug trafficking, there is no such thing as a 

routine stop.

Inside the white minivan, a 16-year-old boy named Joseph 

Kane remained in the passenger seat, while his father, Jerry, age 

45, stood in front of the police SUV and argued with the officers. There was a tussle, and Jerry 

Kane pushed Officer Evans into 

a roadside ditch. The boy quickly 

emerged from the minivan with a 

loaded AK-47 and aimed at Evans. 

The officer put one hand on his pistol, and held the other up to the boy 

as if to signal “Stop.” The boy shot 

Evans several times and turned his 

attention to Paudert, who took cover behind the police vehicle.

A package delivery man, exiting the highway at Marker 275, 

stopped his truck to witness the horrific scene. He called 911, 

and the alert went out: “Officer down!”

While Paudert was able to fire his pistol seven times, he was 

outgunned and the police vehicle offered little protection from 

Joe Kane’s assault rifle. The boy chased Paudert around the 

police SUV, shooting him several times in the back of the head 

before returning to Evans in the ditch. There, he fired again. 

The Kanes then rushed to the minivan and pulled away, while 

Joe continued to shoot at the downed officers.

Another alert went out: “Two officers down!”

According to a preliminary investigation report, Brandon Paudert was struck 

11 times and died at the scene; Evans was 

hit by 14 rounds and died at the hospital.

In the next 90 minutes, there was a 

frenzy of activity around West Memphis. 

The highways were closed, law enforcement from various agencies converged on 

the area looking for the white minivan with 

odd Ohio plates, and calls started coming 

in from alert citizens. The van was spotted at a local country club, a commercial 

truck terminal, and an apartment building. 

One witness claimed that Jerry Kane had 

asked for directions to the nearest Walmart. 

As seen in Walmart security videotapes of 

the parking lot, Joe Kane walked into the 

store and made a purchase, while his father 

removed the license plates from the vehicle.

The first to spot the van was an Arkansas 

wildlife officer who rammed into the 

Kanes’ vehicle to prevent it from leaving. The Kanes fired more than a dozen 

rounds at the officer’s truck, but he wasn’t 

hit. As police converged on the scene, two 

more officers were wounded in a frenzied shootout before the Kanes were both 

killed. Crittenden County Sheriff Dick 

Busby was shot once in the shoulder, 

and W.A. Wren, West Memphis’ chief of 

enforcement, was hit multiple times in the 

abdomen. Both men survived.

Over the next few days, West Memphis 

mourned the loss of its officers. At the same 

time, the department, other law enforcement officials, and the public at large began 

to question exactly what had provoked the 

violence. 

Who are the ‘Sovereigns

It would be tempting to dismiss the violence 

that took place that day as an isolated event 

— an unstable father and son who exploded 

in a moment of vicious, unexplained fury. 

The truth, however, is more frightening. 

Jerry Kane and his young son were active 

participants in the sprawling subculture 

of “sovereign citizens” in America: hundreds of thousands of far-right extremists 

who believe that they — not judges, juries, 

law enforcement or elected officials — get 

to decide which laws to obey and which to 

ignore, and who don’t think they should 

have to pay taxes. While law enforcement 

officers may disagree on how to deal with 

or even label this extremist subculture, one 

thing is certain: it’s trouble. The sovereign 

movement is growing fast, and its partisans 

are clogging up the courts with their indecipherable filings. When cornered, many of 

them lash out in rage, frustration and, in the 

most extreme cases, acts of deadly violence.

It is difficult to say precisely how many 

sovereigns there are in the United States 

today, in part because there is no central 

leadership and no organized group that 

members can join — instead, there are a 

variety of local leaders with individualized takes on sovereign citizen ideology 

and techniques (see leader profiles, p. 20). 

Those who are attracted to this bizarre 

subculture typically attend a seminar or 

two, or visit one of the thousands of websites and online videos on the subject, and 

then simply choose how to act on what 

they’ve learned. Some start by testing sovereign ideology with small offenses such as 

driving without a license, while others proceed directly to taking on the IRS as tax 

protesters.

In the mid-1990s, the IRS estimated that 

there were approximately 250,000 such tax 

protesters in the U.S., not all of whom were 

full-blown sovereign ideologues. Since the 

late 1990s, an abundance of evidence suggests that the sovereign citizen movement’s 

growth has been explosive, although there 

have been no more recent IRS estimates 

because Congress in 1998 prohibited the 

agency from tracking or labeling those who 

file frivolous arguments in lieu of paying 

their taxes. But a conservative estimate of 

the number of all kinds of tax protesters 

today would be about 500,000.

In the 2008 criminal tax trial of actor 

Wesley Snipes, whose tax filings made clear 

that he was a sovereign tax protester, IRS 

senior technical adviser Shauna Henline 

testified that the agency receives between 

20,000 and 30,000 frivolous returns each 

year, along with roughly 100,000 letters from tax protesters. Earlier, in 2001, 

the U.S. Senate’s Finance Committee 

held hearings on the growing movement 

and, by 2008, the Department of Justice 

had decided to introduce the National 

Tax Defier Initiative in a bid to target 

key movement leaders. “Simply stated,” 

then-Assistant Attorney General Nathan 

Hochman said in announcing the DOJ initiative, “we want to pull back the curtain 

and show the public that the promoters of 

these tax and bogus schemes are not some 

wizards that have revealed the tax-free 

11:36 AM Officer Evans pulls over

“sovereign citizen” Jerry Kane.

11:48 AM Joe Kane exits the vehicle with an AK-47 and opens fire

11:46 AM Kane argues with Evans

at the rear of the vehicle.

11:49 AM The Kanes flee the scene,

leaving two dying officers behind.

12:41 PM The Kanes’ vehicle

enters a Walmart parking lot.

1:20 PM Officer Neal rams the

Kanes’ vehicle to prevent escape.

1:45 PM The Kanes are both killed

in a shootout with police.

End of watch: Police officer

Brandon Paudert (left) an

Bill Evans, seen here during an April 2010 drug bus

had worked together frequently. On May 20, 2010

at the hands of a father-son 

pair of “sovereign citizens,” 

they died together.

Death on the Int

A traffic stop turns dead

J.J. MacNab is a nationally known tax and insurance expert who has 

testified before the U.S. Congress and in other important venues. The 

author of numerous articles, she is currently at work on a book about 

the sovereign citizens movement.

4 splc intelligence report special report 5

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 27 of 149
Alan Spearman/The Commercia

universe to America, but instead are nothing more than garden variety hucksters and 

modern day snake oil salesmen, peddling 

their bogus tax products.”

Not all tax protesters are sovereign citizens, and many newer recruits to the 

sovereign life did not start out as tax protesters. But based on the available evidence, 

a reasonable estimate of hard-core sovereign believers today would be 100,000, 

with another 200,000 just starting out by 

testing sovereign techniques for resisting 

everything from speeding tickets to drug 

charges, for a total of 300,000. As sovereign 

theories go viral throughout the nation’s 

prison systems and among people who are 

unemployed and desperate in a punishing 

recession, this number is likely to grow.

Redeeming the ‘Strawma

While many sovereign citizens own guns, 

their weapon of choice is paper. A simple 

traffic violation or pet-licensing case can 

end up provoking dozens of court filings 

containing hundreds of pages of pseudolegal nonsense. For example, Donna Lee 

Wray, Jerry Kane’s “common-law wife,” was 

recently involved in a protracted legal battle in a dog-licensing case. She filed 10 sovereign documents in 

court over a two-month period, then declared victory when the 

harried prosecutor decided to drop the case. A three-year dog 

license in Wray’s Pinellas County, Fla., costs $20. 

Tax cases are even worse —sovereign filings in such legal 

battles can quickly exceed a thousand pages. While a normal 

criminal case docket might have 60 or 70 entries, many involving sovereigns have as many as 1,200. The courts are struggling 

to keep up, and judges, prosecutors and public defenders are 

being swamped.

It isn’t just the number of pages that is causing courts to sag 

under the weight of these filings. The documents are written in 

a kind of special sovereign code language that judges, lawyers 

and other court staff simply don’t speak. Sovereigns believe that 

if they can find just the right combination of words, punctuation, paper, ink color and timing, they can have anything they 

want — freedom from taxes, unlimited wealth, and life without 

licenses, fees or laws, are all just a few strangely worded documents away. It’s the modern-day equivalent of “abracadabra.”

At its core, the current sovereign belief system is relatively 

simple and is based on a decades-old conspiracy theory. At 

some point in history, sovereigns believe, the American government set up by the founding fathers — with a legal system the 

sovereigns refer to as “common law” — was secretly replaced by 

a new government system based on admiralty law, the law of the 

sea and international commerce. Some sovereigns believe this 

perfidious change occurred during the Civil War, while others 

blame the events of 1933, when America abandoned the gold 

standard. Either way, they stake their lives and livelihood on the 

idea that judges around the country know 

all about this hidden government takeover 

but are denying the sovereigns’ motions and 

filings out of treasonous loyalty to hidden 

and malevolent government forces. Under 

common law, or so they believe, the sovereigns would be free men. Under admiralty 

law, they are slaves, and secret government 

forces have a vested interest in keeping 

them that way.

The next layer of the scheme is even 

more implausible. Since 1933, the U.S. dollar has been backed not by gold, but by the 

“full faith and credit” of the U.S. government. According to sovereign researchers, 

this means that the government has pledged 

its citizenry as collateral, by selling their 

future earning capabilities to foreign investors, effectively enslaving all Americans. 

This sale, they claim, takes place at birth.

When a baby is born in the U.S., a birth 

certificate is issued, and the hospital usually 

requires that the parents apply for a Social 

Security number at that time. Sovereigns say 

that the government then uses that certificate to set up a kind of corporate trust in the 

baby’s name — a secret Treasury account — 

which it funds with an amount ranging from 

$600,000 to $20 million, depending on the particular variant 

of the sovereign belief system. By setting up this account, every 

newborn’s rights are cleverly split between those held by the 

flesh-and-blood baby and the ones assigned to his or her corporate shell account.

The clues, many sovereigns believe, are found on the birth 

certificate itself. Since most certificates use all capital letters 

to spell out a baby’s name, JOHN DOE is the name of the corporate shell “strawman,” while John Doe is the baby’s “real,” 

flesh-and-blood name. As the child grows older, most of his 

legal documents will utilize capital letters, which means that 

his state-issued driver’s license, his marriage license, his car 

registration, his criminal court records, his cable TV bill, and 

correspondence from the IRS will all pertain to his corporate 

shell identity, not his real, sovereign identity.

The process sovereigns have devised to split the strawman 

from the flesh-and-blood man is called “redemption,” and its 

purpose is two-fold. Once separated from the corporate shell, 

the newly freed man is now outside of the jurisdiction of all 

admiralty laws. More importantly, by filing a series of complex, 

legal-sounding documents, the sovereign can tap into that secret 

Treasury account for his own purposes. Over the last 30 years, 

there have been hundreds of sovereign promoters packaging 

different combinations of forms and paperwork, attempting to 

perfect the process. While no one has ever succeeded, of course, 

they know with the religious certainty of a true cult believer that 

they’re close. All it will take is the right combination of words, 

say the promoters of the redemption scam.

Jerry Kane was one such promoter.

Why Do They Do

Newcomers drift into the movement in a variety of ways. 

Originally, the sovereign citizens movement mostly attracted 

white supremacists and anti-Semites, mainly because sovereign theories originated in groups who saw Jews as playing a 

behind-the-scenes role in manipulating financial institutions 

and controlling the government. Most early sovereigns, and 

some of those who are still on the scene, believed that being 

white was a prerequisite to becoming a sovereign citizen. They 

argued that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which 

gave blacks U.S. citizenship, also made black Americans permanently subject to federal and state governments, unlike 

themselves.

In recent years, however, most new recruits are people 

who have found themselves in a desperate situation and are 

searching for a quick fix. Others 

are intrigued by the notions of easy 

money and living a lawless life, free 

from any unpleasant consequences. 

(Moreover, many self-identified 

sovereigns today are black and 

apparently completely unaware 

of the racist origins of their ideology.) When they experience some 

small success at using redemption 

techniques to battle minor traffic 

offenses or local licensing issues, they’re hooked. For many, it’s 

a political issue. They don’t like taxes, traffic laws, child support 

obligations or making banks rich, but they are too impatient to 

try to change what they dislike by traditional, political means.

In times of economic prosperity, sovereigns typically rely 

on absurd and convoluted schemes to evade state and federal 

income taxes and hide their assets from the IRS. In times of 

financial hardship, they turn to debt- and mortgage-elimination scams, techniques to avoid child support payments, and 

even attempts to use their redemption techniques to get out of 

serious criminal charges. Jerry Kane, who’d suffered a series 

of personal defeats in life, specialized in teaching a mortgageelimination technique that had no basis in the actual law.

Once in the movement, it’s an immersive and heady experience. In the last three decades, the redemptionist subculture 

has grown from small groups of like-minded individuals in 

localized pockets around the nation to a richly layered society. 

Redemptionists attend specialized seminars and national conferences, enjoy a large assortment of alternative newspapers 

and radio networks, and subscribe to sovereign-oriented magazines and websites. They home school their children so that 

a new generation will not have to go through the same learning curve that they did to see past the government’s curtain to 

the common-law utopia beyond.

While the techniques sold by promoters never perform as 

promised, most followers are nonetheless content to be fighting 

“How much more 

routine can you 

get than a father 

and son in a 

church van? 

Your guard is 

down and you’re 

just not ready for 

a shootout. We 

need indicators 

that tell us what 

to look for.”

— chief bob paudert, father 

and boss of slain officer 

brandon paudert

The aftermath: Police surround the Kanes’ vehicl

after the final shootout in 

a Walmart parking lot. The

body of Joe Kane lies in th

foreground; his father's 

hand can be seen behind 

the rear of the vehicle. The 

Kanes had removed their

license plates less than half 

an hour earlier. 

6 splc intelligence report

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 28 of 149
8 splc intelligence report

Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, Mike Wintroath/A

new mexico booking photo (kane); youtube video (joe and jerry ka

the battle, and they blame only the judges, lawyers, prosecutors and police when their gurus’ methods fail. While most 

have never achieved financial success in life, they take pride 

in engaging the government in battle, comparing themselves 

to the founding fathers during the American Revolution.

The movement has grown to the point where a group 

called the Guardians of the Free Republics is attempting to 

assemble its own common-law-based, alternative government on a national scale. Already, the group, which in 2010 

demanded that the governors of all 50 states step down, 

claims to have set up a common-law court in every state and 

has signed up more than 1,000 jurors for these pseudo-legal 

judicial bodies.

Liens, Litigation and Mur

A litigation plan based solely on conspiracies and absurd legal 

theories is doomed to fail. When the inevitable happens, the 

sovereign has two choices: he can admit he was wrong and 

fell for an obvious scam, or he can blame the government. 

Considering that most sovereigns were already desperate when 

they joined the movement, spending years and many dollars on 

worthless redemption techniques can only have worsened their 

situation. Realistically, some angry outbursts are to be expected 

when the moment of truth arrives.

Sometimes, those outbursts are aimed at self or family. But 

far more often, the sovereign takes aim at his perceived enemies. The judge that dismisses his claim, the county recorder 

who refuses his filing, the reporter that calls him a deadbeat 

dad, and the sheriff who evicts him from his foreclosed home 

— all are possible targets of a sovereign’s rage (see tips for law 

enforcement officials, p. 24). Since most sovereigns favor paper 

over guns, this revenge most often takes the form of retaliatory property liens and tax forms that are designed to ruin an 

enemy’s credit rating and cause them to be audited by the IRS.

But in those cases where a sovereign feels particularly desperate, angry, battle-weary and cornered, his next government 

contact, no matter how minor, can be his final straw. The resulting rage can be lethal.

Jerry and Joe Kane were not the first sovereigns to lash out 

at a routine traffic stop and it’s unlikely they’ll be the last. In 

1995 in Ohio, a sovereign named Michael Hill pulled a gun on 

an officer during a traffic stop. Hill was killed. In 1997, New 

Hampshire extremist Carl Drega shot dead two officers and 

two civilians, and wounded another three officers before being 

killed himself. In that same year in Idaho, when brothers Doug 

and Craig Broderick were pulled over for failing to signal, they 

killed one officer and wounded another before being killed 

themselves in a violent gun battle.

And, in a 1993 case that bears an eerie similarity to the recent 

events in West Memphis, an Alabama officer approached a family’s car in a strip mall parking lot. A shopper there had told 

the officer that a boy in the back seat was asking for help. The 

officer walked to the car and asked to see the father’s driver’s 

license. There was an argument, and the father made some typical sovereign claims. Then, without warning, the father pulled 

out his gun and shot the officer. Badly wounded, the officer 

tried to run to his car, but instead met the wife of the sovereign, who pulled out her own weapon and shot him dead. The 

couple had warrants out for their arrest in Florida, and the car 

they were driving had unusual sovereign-style license plates. 

Sovereign citizens George Sibley and Linda Block were executed for the murder by the state of Alabama several years later.

Citizen Kan

May 2010 had been a stressful month for Jerry Kane. He’d been 

traveling around the country with his teenage son, giving seminars to financially strapped individuals and promising them the 

tools to avoid foreclosure. His seminar fee ranged from $100 to 

$300 “per man,” but a man was free to bring his wife and children for that price. If a follower were in really dire straits, Kane 

would let him attend free.

As a former long-haul trucker, Kane was used to long hours 

on the road with his son, but in one of his last online radio 

shows, he’d told his followers that he was frustrated with the 

seminar circuit and planned to cut his scheduled tour off early, 

after one more date in Florida. A seminar in Denver had been 

a disaster — no one had shown up — and he’d just completed 

a two-day event in Las Vegas, traveling thousands of miles in 

his old Plymouth Voyager. Despite his efforts and time, only 

six people had attended.

To make matters worse, Kane knew that driving cross-country was risky. As a sovereign citizen and a member of the larger 

antigovernment “Patriot” movement — a free man who believed 

that the Constitution guaranteed his right to travel without 

restriction — he was breaking a number of laws. He didn’t have 

a driver’s license. His van was registered to an accommodating 

ministry in Ohio. There was a brick of marijuana in the car. And, 

most importantly, he had outstanding warrants for his arrest 

in two states. In Ohio, he faced charges of forgery and theft by 

deception. He’d also been arrested in New Mexico for driving 

without a license and concealing his identity. He’d been preparing a series of documents to file in New Mexico that were 

designed to punish the police officer who arrested him. Kane 

was determined to make the officer and his family pay.

On May 20, Jerry and Joe Kane were driving east on I-40 

from Las Vegas to their last seminar and a new life in Florida. 

Kane had met a Floridian named Donna Lee Wray at one of 

his foreclosure seminars three months earlier, and they had 

fallen in love. Father and son were headed, they thought, to a 

bright new life. Instead, they left a trail of human wreckage and 

smashed-up hopes and dreams.

Today, even after learning many of the facts behind the 

sovereign citizens movement that helped lead the Kanes and 

others to murder, the late Officer Paudert’s boss and father, 

the West Memphis chief, struggles to make sense of what happened. Bob Paudert mourns his son and the other casualties of 

the collision of sovereign citizen ideology and law enforcement, 

and he worries that his personal tragedy could repeat itself with 

other police officers on roads around the nation.

“How much more routine can you get than a father and son 

in [what looked like] a church van?” he asked in an interview. 

“Your guard is down and you’re just not ready for a shootout. 

We need indicators that tell us what to look for.”

There are telltale signs of sovereign citizens — strange 

license plates, unusual comments about the Fed and other 

government agencies, and so on (see story, p. 14). But they are 

not always easy to spot. And while not all are violent — sovereign leaders around the country have had mixed views of 

the Arkansas shootout, from painting the Kanes as heroes to 

various wild-eyed conspiracy theories about them being “set 

up” by government forces — there is little to suggest that the 

killings have weakened the movement. Donna Lee Wray, for 

example, reacted to the death of her new family by firing off 

angry missives demanding, among other things, that she be 

paid $1 million every time her “copyrighted” name is printed by 

those writing about the case. The number of sovereigns across 

America is clearly expanding, and with that growth comes an 

increasing level of danger.

Bob Paudert, in an emotional interview with the Intelligence 

Report, said he knows only too well what the cost can be. “It was 

the worst day of my life, ever,” the chief said. “I hope no parent 

has to go through what we’ve been through.” s

When 16-year-old Joseph Kane shot and 

killed two Arkansas police officers in May 

2010, it was only the latest in a disturbing 

trend of right-wing extremists murdering 

law enforcement officials. Kane shot West 

Memphis officers Bill Evans and Brandon 

Paudert a combined 25 times with an 

AK-47 after he and his father, Jerry Ralph 

Kane Jr., were pulled over in a traffic stop. The 

Kanes, who had traveled the country giving 

classes in “redemption foreclosure mortgage 

fraud,” went on to wound two other officers 

before being killed themselves.

In 2009, five law enforcement officers and a museum security guard were 

slain in three incidents in which the suspected shooters reportedly had each 

expressed displeasure with the election of 

President Obama. That was the most since 

1995, when six officers were murdered by 

right-wing extremists, five of them in the 

Oklahoma City bombing that also left 163 

other people dead.

The victims in 2009 included three 

Pittsburgh police officers allegedly shot 

and killed by Richard Poplawski, who a 

friend said feared that President Obama 

was going to restrict gun ownership. 

(Poplawski’s case is pending). In Okaloosa 

County, Fla., two sheriff’s deputies were 

shot and killed by U.S. Army Reservist 

Joshua Cartwright, who was then killed in 

a shootout. Cartwright’s wife told officials 

her husband had been “severely disturbed” 

by Obama’s election, and local authorities 

said that he had been interested in joining 

an antigovernment militia. In Washington, 

D.C., neo-Nazi James von Brunn shot and 

killed a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust 

Memorial Museum. Von Brunn, 88, who died 

later while in custody, wrote in a notebook 

that “Obama does what his Jew owners tell 

him to do,” according to a police affidavit.

Since 1990, law enforcement officers 

have comprised nearly 15% of the victims of far-right killings — 49 out of more 

than 400 fatalities — according to a report 

published this year by the University of 

Maryland. Local and state officers have 

accounted for more than 70% of these law 

enforcement deaths.

Murdered Officers Part of Deadly 

Heart to heart: West Memphis, Ark., Detective Jimmy Evans (left), 

brother was murdered by Joe Kane, talks with Wildlife Officer Mich

Neal. Neal rammed his truck into the fleeing Kanes’ vehicle, preventi

their escape and drawing a hail of bullets from the fugitives.

Stressed out: With thei

finances in shambles, 

Jerry Kane and his son J

traveled the country giving sparsely attended 

seminars on avoiding foreclosure while clad in white 

suits. When Jerry Kane w

arrested in New Mexico for

driving without a license 

(booking photos above), 

he seemed to grow ever 

angrier than in the past. 

month later, the Kanes, now

cop-killers, were dead.

special report 9

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 29 of 149
The leadership of the “sovereign 

citizens” movement is populated 

with men who market a variety 

of generally nonsensical, and 

often illegal, schemes to avoid 

taxes, eliminate debts and extract 

money from the government. Many 

of these leaders specialize in 

the so-called “redemption” scam 

(see story, p. 2), a bizarre 

technique that supposedly 

allows participants to tap into 

huge amounts of cash that the 

government is thought to keep 

in their name. What follows are 

short profiles of a dozen of these 

leaders. The leaders’ websites are The listed under their names.

Sovereigns

Barton Albert Buh

Sunland, Calif

For years, Barton 

Buhtz, who styles himself “Barton Albert: 

Buhtz” in the peculiar 

punctuation of the 

sovereign citizens 

movement (see “name 

punctuation,” p. 15), 

promoted a redemption scheme that 

taught clients how to print fraudulent U.S. Treasury checks to pay their 

taxes, purchase real estate, and pay 

credit card and other bills. This was 

a variation of a scheme attempted by 

members of the Montana Freemen, 

a sovereign citizens group that was 

active in the 1990s. Buhtz promised 

clients that the fake checks were 

a legal means of accessing a secret 

Treasury account that the government 

has set up based on every American’s 

future earnings. 

While Buhtz claimed the phony 

checks can purchase anything, he 

personally only accepted cash as payment for his seminars and services. In 

2007, Buhtz was convicted on multiple 

felony counts for helping clients pass 

a total of $3.8 million in phony checks, 

and in 2009 he was sentenced to 36 

months in federal prison. He is set to 

be released in 2012. A number of his 

former clients are currently either in 

prison or fighting criminal charges.

Samuel Lynn Davis,

Boise, Idah

www.StatusIsFreedom.

www.commercialredemption.com

Samuel Lynn Davis, 

who goes by the nickname “I am: Sam,” 

is one of the more 

popular redemption 

seminar hosts in the 

country, and dozens 

of his seminar videos 

have been uploaded to YouTube.com. 

In addition to the websites listed 

above, Davis shares Web space with 

other key redemption gurus (including, until his death, Jerry Kane) at 

www.privateaudio.homestead.com. 

In his seminars, he boasts that he 

hasn’t filed a tax return since 1998 but 

doesn’t disclose that he currently has 

$53,000 in outstanding state and federal tax liens. Davis has been listed as 

one of the elders in the Guardians of 

the Free Republics, a sovereign group 

that claims to have recently set up 

“common-law courts” in all 50 states. 

On March 3, 2009, Davis and his 

common-law court partner “Rabbi” 

Shawn Rice were indicted in federal 

court on 31 counts of bank fraud and 

money laundering. Rice remained 

a fugitive at press time. Despite his 

upcoming trial in Las Vegas, Davis 

has advised his clients that everything is going as planned.

Ronald Delorme, 

Bismark, N.

www.officialpnlsbna.org

Ronald Delorme is 

the leader of one 

of the newest and 

most prolific sovereign schemes to 

hit the U.S., a phony 

Native American tribe 

called The Little Shell 

Pembina Band of North America. 

Delorme claims that an enormous 

land parcel totaling 53 million acres 

(most of North Dakota plus portions of South Dakota, Montana, 

and Manitoba) belongs to the sovereign tribe, and anyone who pays the 

fee can become a member. In effect, 

the tribe offers one-stop-shopping 

for the modern sovereign — freedom 

from taxes, a tribal license plate, a 

phony law license, even fake malpractice and automobile insurance. The 

faux tribe also advises members on 

how to pass counterfeit checks and 

avoid falling into the jurisdiction of 

the American courts. “Rabbi” Shawn 

Rice, fugitive co-defendant of Samuel 

Davis (see profile above), is a member of this tribe. In 2007, a Little Shell 

subsidiary called Gold-Quest was 

charged with running a $27.9 million 

Ponzi scheme. The tribe responded 

by filing a $1.7 trillion lawsuit against 

the SEC.

Nature El Bey

Taj Tarik Be

Asbury Park, N

“Lord Nobles” Taj 

Tarik Bey (real name 

and age unknown) 

and Nature El Bey 

(formerly known as 

Lee S. Crudup) are 

two of the leaders 

of a rapidly growing black nationalist 

religious movement 

called Moorish 

Science Temple of 

America — part of the 

larger and expanding phenomenon of 

black sovereign groups. The group 

considers itself sovereign in that it 

counsels followers to pay taxes to the 

temple, rather than to the IRS. Like 

other sovereigns, members do not 

carry state-issued driver’s licenses 

(but instead use temple identification cards) and, when charged with 

crimes, consider themselves to be 

outside the jurisdiction of any federal, 

state, or local court. The group markets itself primarily through booklets 

and videos posted on YouTube, and 

its sovereign schemes have been 

spreading rapidly in the last two 

or three years through the nation’s 

urban neighborhoods and prison 

system.

Roger Elvick,

Lakota, N.

In the 1980s, Roger Elvick was the 

first promoter to effectively distribute a redemption scheme to an eager 

and desperate audience of Midwest 

photo illustrations b

The 

Sovereigns

10 splc intelligence report special report 11

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 30 of 149
12 splc intelligence report

farmers, and he is 

generally acknowledged as the founding 

father of the modern 

redemption movement. While phony 

Federal Reserve 

checks and similar 

programs had been used earlier by 

far-right promoters Tupper Saussy 

and Conrad LeBeau, Elvick and 

the late white supremacist leader 

William Potter Gale were the first to 

dress up the scam with the legalistic 

terminology that now characterizes 

the sovereign citizens movement and 

sovereign redemption techniques. As 

a result of issuing such checks, Elvick 

spent seven years in the 1990s in federal prison, where he further fleshed 

out his scheme. In 2003, he was 

arrested again by the state of Ohio 

and charged with forgery, extortion, 

and corruption. The judge found him 

mentally unfit to stand trial, and he 

spent several months in a psychiatric 

institution before pleading guilty to 

the state charges. Elvick was released 

from prison in September 2007.

Kurt F. Johnson,

Dale Scott Heinem

Union City, Cali

www.thedoreangroup.blogspot.com

In just a few short 

years, Kurt Johnson 

and Dale Scott 

Heineman grew a tiny 

redemption-based 

debt elimination practice into the largest 

mortgage-elimination 

firm in the country, 

the Dorean Group, 

with thousands of 

clients in at least 35 

states. They promised 

followers who were 

about to lose their 

homes to foreclosure 

that they could own the home free 

and clear by simply transferring the 

property to a trust controlled by the 

Dorean Group. Dorean would then 

file a fake grant deed with the county 

recorder and in the short time when 

it appeared in the record that the 

home was debt-free, the client would 

apply for a new loan and split the 

proceeds with promoters. Johnson, 

Heineman and four other salespeople in their thriving company were 

convicted on multiple felony counts 

in 2007. Johnson is currently serving 

a 25-year sentence in federal prison, 

while Heineman is serving 21 years.

David Wynn Miller,

Milwaukee, Wis

www.dwmlc.com

A former tool-anddie maker, the man 

who writes his name 

as “:David-Wynn: 

Miller” — or, as he 

amusingly says it verbally, “David hyphen 

Wynn full colon 

Miller” — came up with his “truth 

language” scheme as a result of a 

frustrating court experience in 1988, 

when he was going through a divorce. 

In short, all truth language sentences 

used in court filings must begin with 

the preposition “for,” contain at least 

13 words, and use more nouns than 

verbs to be effective (he has claimed 

that only nouns have legal authority). 

David Wynn Miller considers himself a “Plenipotentiary Judge” in the 

Unity States of the World, and has 

named himself as the King of Hawaii, 

a feat he claims he accomplished 

when he converted Hawaii into a 

verb. Needless to say, Full Colon 

Miller’s clients have fared poorly in 

both civil and criminal courts, and 

at least one client has been required 

to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. 

Miller is one of the few sovereign 

gurus that can say he has clients in 

four different countries currently 

serving prison sentences. Despite 

these failures, Miller’s exotic punctuation scheme is rapidly growing.

Winston Shrout

Santa Clara, Uta

www.wssic.com

Winston Shrout offers 

a popular seven-part 

series of seminars and 

sells several books 

and DVDs through 

his website. His materials focus on the 

“commercial process,” instructing clients in the use 

of IRS Form 1099-OID to solve all of 

their tax and debt problems. Despite 

his alleged expertise, Shrout currently has $50,000 in outstanding tax 

liens, declared personal bankruptcy 

in 2001, and lost three federal civil 

cases in the last 10 years, including 

one in which a major bank sued both 

Winston and his sham “freeman” 

arbitration company.

James Timothy Turner, 

Skipperville, Ala

www.americacanbefree.com

Tim Turner burst 

onto the redemption scene three 

years ago, offering a 

series of very popular seminars that 

promise attendees 

that they can pay off 

their mortgage, credit card debt, and 

income tax bills using the “power of 

negative averments.” He also claims 

to have cured leukemia in five days. 

Turner’s programs teach his clients 

to file dozens of meaningless court 

documents, and when the opposing 

parties don’t respond accordingly, 

to file absurdly large retaliatory 

property liens against them. For 

example, in one foreclosure case in 

which Turner was not even a party, 

he filed nine fraudulent liens totaling more than $158 billion against 

the bank, its attorneys, the court 

trustee, and miscellaneous other 

participants. While Turner told his 

14th Amendment citize

Sovereign citizens describe 14th 

Amendment citizens as subject 

to federal and state governments, 

unlike themselves. Because the 

amendment gave citizenship to 

freed slaves, a racist variant 

of sovereign-citizen 

theory holds that 

blacks are subject to the 

government 

and that being 

white is a prerequisite to being 

a sovereign citizen. Others claim 

all state citizens were converted by 

the constitutional amendment to 

“Federal Citizens,” who can only 

be freed by a process known as 

“asseveration.”

Accepted for valu

When a sovereign receives a bill 

from the IRS, a bank, or even the 

cable company, under a twisted 

reading of the Uniform Commercial 

Code, he believes he can simply 

write “Accepted for Value” on that 

bill and it will be paid by his secret 

Treasury Direct Account, set up by 

the government when he was born.

< Admiralty law

common law

According to sovereign beliefs, 

there are two 

types of law: 

common law 

and admiralty law. Since 

the U.S. went off the gold standard in 1933, sovereigns say, no one 

has been able to pay a debt with “real” 

money, and therefore the country has 

been operating under commercial law, 

which sovereigns equate with admiralty law, the law of the seas. Thus, 

they argue, completely speciously, 

that Americans have been deprived 

of their original common law, under 

which the government can only 

impose regulations on citizens with 

their consent, since 1933.

followers that he won the case, he 

was actually sanctioned $22,500 

by the court. Most recently, Turner 

has taken over the leadership of the 

Guardians of the Free Republics, 

a group that in 2010 fruitlessly 

demanded that all 50 governors step 

down and now claims to have established common-law courts in all 50 

states. According to his followers, 

Turner canceled his seminar schedule. In the past, Turner has worked 

as both a commercial fisherman and 

a FEMA employee.

Dr. Glenn Richard Unge

Clifton Park, 

www.republicbroadcasting.org

The host of the popular online radio show 

“Take No Prisoners,” 

who uses the alias of 

“Dr. Sam Kennedy,” 

Dr. Glenn Unger is one 

of the more secretive 

redemption leaders. In 

addition to using a false name, Unger 

doesn’t keep a marketing website and 

doesn’t allow followers to videotape 

his speaking engagements. He markets his “Beneficiaries in Commerce” 

program as a cure-all for everything 

from tax bills and debt elimination 

to what he calls “prison extraction.” 

Unger was a founding member of the 

Guardians of the Free Republics and 

received some unwelcome publicity 

in 2010 when the FBI investigated the 

group for threatening state governors. 

In a coup by fellow sovereign Tim 

Turner in 2010, Unger was pushed 

out of the Guardians group. Despite 

his stealth, the IRS found Unger and 

hit him with a $116,000 federal tax 

lien last September. Furthermore, 

at least three of Unger’s clients have 

gone to prison as a result of following his program; in a fourth case, the 

judge found the defendant mentally 

unfit to stand trial as a result of the 

nonsensical documents he filed with 

the court. s

‘Sovereign’ Id

A Dictionary 

of the Peculiar

Adherents of the “sovereign citizens” 

movement and of sovereign financial 

scams like “redemption” are known 

for their bizarre use of language and 

Byzantine belief system. What follows 

is a lexicon — or, more precisely, an 

idioticon, a dictionary of a peculiar dialect — meant to help court 

officials, law enforcement officers 

and the general public make their way 

through the sovereigns’ verbal fog. 

special report 13

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 31 of 149
14 splc intelligence report

Tips for Law Enforcement

Unfortunately for law enforcement, self-described “sovereign citizens” don’t come

with a warning label. In the past, most sovereigns were white supremacists organized into small groups that typically all used the same “private” license plate

instead of legal tags. Today, while that is sometimes still true, the ideology of the 

sovereign citizen movement has spread to the point where adherents hail from any 

race and are found throughout the nation. And they do not all necessarily carry fake 

license plates or bear other obvious markers. Still, there are common traits that law 

enforcement officers can and should be on the alert for. They include:

License plates with oddball names like the “Kingdom of Heaven” an

the “Little Shell Pembina Band,” which is a fake Indian tribe that runs a redemption scam. The FBI has a brochure available for all law enforcement agen

that includes pictures of a variety of sovereign plates.

Antigovernment bumper stickers

Unusual use of outdated language.

A simple question like, “Where are you headed?” 

may get you a response along the lines of, 

“I am a free man, traveling upon the land.

An arrogant or belligerent attitude

Sovereigns believe that they have secret knowledge about a complex 

government conspiracy that most Americans, including law enforcement 

officials, are too stupid to comprehend.

Anti-Federal Reserve or banking comments, even though all y

are discussing is a driver’s license, registration tags or traffic infractions. Anger 

towards other government agencies such as FEMA, the EPA, the U.S. Post

Office and the Census Bureau is common

Unsolicited anti-Semitic comments

either outright or veiled.

< Odd punctuation of names,

typically involving colons and hyphens.

The absence of a zip code in adherents’ addresses

(sometimes, the zip code is present, but 

placed in brackets).

Flag fringe 

Based on the fact that Navy 

flags and many other military flags have gold fringe, 

sovereigns believe the 

presence of fringe on flags 

in federal courts isn’t just 

decorative, but rather 

proof that the nation is 

under admiralty law.

Form 1099

Although the IRS 

uses this form 

for zero-coupon bonds and 

collateralized 

bonds, sovereigns believe that 

the 1099-OID gives 

them access to the money 

in the secret Treasury Direct 

Account that the government funded at their 

birth.

Name in all capital letters

JOHN ROBERT DOE, for instance, 

signifies the corporate shell of a 

person, as opposed to the flesh-andblood person.

Name punctuatio

John-Robert: Doe signifies a 

flesh-and-blood person named JohnRobert of the family Doe, as opposed 

to a punctuation-free name, JOHN 

ROBERT DOE, which refers to the 

corporate shell of a person.

Negative avermen

The trick, used by many sovereigns, 

of twisting all statements into the 

form of a question in order to shift 

the burden of truth to the opponent.

Red ink 

In some states, bonds are canceled 

using red ink. Sovereigns therefore 

sign many legal documents and correspondence in red ink to signify 

that they are canceling the bond 

attached to their birth certificate 

or corporate self. Others believe the 

color of the ink represents the blood 

of the flesh-and-blood person.

Redemptio

The phony legal process sovereigns 

use to separate a person’s fleshand-blood body from their mythical 

corporate shell. Since only the corporate shell is subject to taxes, traffic 

laws and license requirements, the 

ability to separate the two is the 

key to liberating people from such 

requirements. An added bonus 

is that the newly freed sovereign 

can then write checks, or “bills of 

exchange,” on the account the government has set up to monetize the 

person’s life and earnings.

Strawma

The label assigned to the corporate 

shell in the redemption process. 

This corporate shell is attached 

to a baby at birth when a birth certificate is typed out using all capital 

letters and a Social Security number is 

applied for.

Sui juri

Many sovereigns add this Latin 

phrase, meaning “of one’s own right,” 

to their flesh-and-blood names on 

legal documents to signify that they 

are reserving all the rights to which a 

free man is entitled.

Treasury Direct Accou

When a baby is born, sovereigns 

believe that the government funds 

a secret Treasury account in that 

baby’s corporate shell name, based 

on that person’s future earnings. This 

account can be accessed by writing 

special checks to pay taxes, mortgage 

balances and other debts. Sovereigns 

variously believe the account’s value 

is between $600,000 and $20 million.

Truth languag

A complex and bizarre set of language 

rules designed to mimic the secret 

language of the law. All sentences 

must start with the preposition “for,” 

have a minimum of 13 words, and use 

more nouns than verbs. Punctuation 

rules are just as complex.

UCC-1 Statem

When a sovereign successfully separates his flesh-and-blood body from 

his corporate shell in the redemption process, the flesh-and-blood 

body then can file a UCC-1 statement 

against their corporate self in order to 

preserve the value of that corporate 

self’s Treasury Direct Account for 

their own use. Since most jurisdictions are getting wise to sovereigns’ 

UCC games, sovereigns often must 

shop jurisdictions until they find one 

willing to file the statement without 

question. s

 Bill of Exchang

A fake check used to access the funds 

in the secret Treasury account supposedly set up by the government to 

monetize the value of each citizen’s 

life at birth. 

Birth certificate

This form establishes each person’s 

corporate shell, a kind of evil doppelgänger that is attached to every 

flesh-and-blood baby. That shell is 

then supposedly sold by the government as a security to foreign investors 

to enrich Federal Reserve bankers. 

The proof that the certificate has 

secret meaning is found in the use of 

all capital letters, bond paper and a 

seal and/or watermark — all of which 

are thought to reflect admiralty law.

Citizen/citize

In the 18th-century colonies, nouns 

were usually capitalized, although the 

practice was going out of style by the 

time of the Revolution. Based on that, 

sovereigns see secret meaning in the 

use or non-use of capitalized letters. 

For example, a “citizen” is a sovereign citizen imbued with all natural 

rights, whereas a “Citizen” is a 14th 

Amendment citizen subject to the 

rules and regulations of government.

Common-law court

Pseudo-legal courts set up to hear 

matters concerning sovereign citizens, 

sometimes also called “freemen.” They 

have been used to put enemies on trial 

for such offenses as treason, rule on 

matters of interest to sovereigns and, 

frequently, to formalize citizens’ declarations of sovereignty, a process 

often known as asseveration.

illustration by

special report 15

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 32 of 149
16 splc intelligence report

A Message from Chief Bob

On May 20, 2010, J

fire on West Memphis, Ark., police officers Bill Evans and 

Brandon Paudert during a routine interstate traffic stop. In a 

harrowing series of events, the Kanes killed the officers and went 

on to wound a sheriff and his chief deputy before being killed 

themselves. Jerry and Joseph Kane were so-called “sovereign 

citizens,” members of a dangerous radical-right movement that 

is driven by conspiracy theories and a deep-seated hatred of the 

government and may include as many as 300,000 people. As it 

happened, Brandon Paudert was the son of West Memphis Police 

Chief Bob Paudert. Since his son and his partner’s murders, Chief 

Paudert has dedicated himself to educating his fellow law enforcement officers about the threat posed 

by sovereigns, speaking to law enforcement groups and also narrating part of the Southern Poverty Law 

Center officer-safety video, “‘Sovereign Citizens’ and Law Enforcement: Understanding the Threat,” 

that is included in this special issue of the Intelligence Report. He says his sincerest hope is that no law 

enforcement officer will ever again face the tragedy that befell his own family.

Chief, why is educating law enforcement

about the potential threat posed by socalled sovereign citizens important?

When you look at what happened that 

day in May, it’s obvious that Brandon 

and Bill were not prepared for what was 

coming. Prior to May 20, 2010, when 

a law enforcement officer in a traffic 

stop asked for registration, they normally were handed a registration card 

from one of the 50 states. But not that 

day. You can see a look of confusion on 

Brandon and Bill’s faces as Jerry Kane 

produced his fake sovereign driver’s 

license. Brandon and Bill were on that 

traffic stop for nearly 15 minutes, and 

they were obviously confused by these 

bizarre documents. My officers just did 

not know what they were looking at, 

that they were facing dangerous believers in the sovereign citizens ideology. If 

they had known in advance what they 

were dealing with, Brandon and Bill 

would be alive today. 

You’ve told us that you have heard from

many police officers who have had dealings with sovereigns. Tell us a little more

about that.

I have received calls from all over the 

country, and considerable gratitude for 

the [officer-safety] DVD and for sharing my story. But, shockingly, it’s the 

rare officer that I have talked to who 

knows about the sovereign citizens. I 

talked recently to a particular officer 

who is being harassed by people who 

share the Kanes’ beliefs. The officer is 

actually being sued by them. Nobody 

else has been in touch with him. He’s 

begging for help. He’s now in fear for 

his life. It’s people like this that just 

tear at your heart. I’ve decided I’m 

going to do all I can to help these officers. I’m going to respond to every call 

and every E-mail to make sure that 

they are getting the information that 

they need to be safe.

Do you worry about the threat posed to

law enforcement officers by other types 

of extremists?

Any extremist group is a danger to officers, regardless of what ideology they 

have. If they go to the extreme with 

their beliefs and they are willing to die 

for their beliefs, they are dangerous 

to law enforcement. We need to know 

what the signs are that are associated 

with all types of extremists; we need to 

know what their tattoos mean and so 

forth. It’s clear there are indicators that 

we should be on the lookout for. I know 

it is going to save lives when officers are 

armed with this knowledge. Training is 

essential. That’s the bottom line.

What are your future plans now

My life changed forever on May 20, 

2010. I don’t want this to ever happen to 

anyone again. I have a deep passion now 

to inform as many police officers as I 

can about the dangers presented by sovereigns and to teach them what to look 

for, so they can be prepared for this situation. I hope we can reach more police 

officers and tell them about the dangers 

we are facing. I hope to educate as many 

people as I can. I want to focus on officer safety issues, that’s what I want to 

dedicate my life to. s

West Memphis, Ark., Police Chief Bob 

Paudert has served in law enforcement for 45 years. He began his career 

as a jailer in Shelby County, Tenn., 

and served as head of narcotics for the 

Memphis Police Department before joining the West Memphis department in 

1999. Officers who would like to talk with 

the chief are encouraged to contact him 

through his police department’s phone 

number, 870-735-1210.

I

In the years since the Oklahoma City federal building was bombed in 1995, 

32 law enforcement officers have been murdered by domestic right-wing political extremists. 

Each of their deaths was a unique tragedy.

Leslie George Lord, 45

New Hampshire State Police 

(Colebrook) 

Aug. 19, 1997

Scott Edward Phillips, 32

New Hampshire State Police 

(Colebrook) 

Aug. 19, 1997

Bruce Vanderjagt, 47

Denver, Colo., Police 

Department

Nov. 12, 1997

Robert “Sande” Sanderson, 34

Birmingham, Ala., Police 

Department

Jan. 29, 1998

Dennis Warren Finch, 52

Traverse City, Mich., Police 

Department

May 13, 1998

Dale Dewain Claxton, 45

Cortez, Colo., Police 

Department

May 29, 1998

James Arland Rowland, Jr., 30 

Palmer, Alaska, Police 

Department

May 15, 1999

Ricky Leon Kinchen, 35

Fulton County, Ga., Sheriff’s 

Department

March 17, 2000

John C. Bohach, 35

Reno, Nev., 

Police Department

Aug. 22, 2001

Eric Bradford Taylor, 31

Massillon, Ohio, 

Police Department

Aug. 9, 2002

David Frank Mobilio, 31

Red Bluff, Calif., Police 

Department

Nov. 19, 2002

Kevin Michael Marshall, 33

Michigan State Police 

(Fremont)

July 7, 2003

Donald McMurry Ouzts, 63

Abbeville County, S.C., 

Magistrate’s Office

Dec. 8, 2003

Danny Wilson, 37

Abbeville County, S.C., 

Sheriff’s Office

Dec. 8, 2003

Robert Walter Hedman, 49

Otero County, N.M., 

Sheriff’s Department

Dec. 18, 2004

Henry “Hank” Nava, Jr., 39 

Fort Worth, Texas, 

Police Department

Dec. 1, 2005

Lee Stewart Newbill, 49

Moscow, Idaho, 

Police Department

May 19, 2007

Stephen Anderson, 60

Salt Lake City, Utah, 

Department of 

Corrections

June 25, 2007

John R. Smith, 40

Bastrop, La., Police 

Department

Aug. 10, 2007

Charles D. Wilson, Jr., 34 

Bastrop, La., Police 

Department

Aug. 10, 2007

Ronald Harrison, 56

Hillsboro County, Fla., 

Sheriff’s Office

Aug. 15 2007

Thomas Paul Tennant, 51

Woodburn, Ore., Police 

Department

Dec. 12, 2008

William Hakim, 51

Oregon State Police

Dec. 12, 2008

Paul Sciullo III, 37

Pittsburgh, Pa., Police 

Department

April 4, 2009

Stephen Mayhle, 29

Pittsburgh, Pa., 

Police Department

April 4, 2009

Eric Kelly, 41

Pittsburgh, Pa., 

Police Department

April 4, 2009

Burt Lopez, 45

Okaloosa County, Fla., 

Sheriff’s Office

April 25, 2009

Warren “Skipp” York, 45

Okaloosa County, Fla., 

Sheriff’s Office

April 25, 2009

Stephen T. Johns, 39

United States Holocaust 

Memorial Museum Security 

June 10, 2009

Shane Thomas Detwiler, 31

Chambers County, Texas, 

Sheriff’s Office

July 13, 2009

Bill Evans, 38

West Memphis, Ark., 

Police Department

May 20, 2010

Brandon Paudert, 39

West Memphis, Ark., 

Police Department

May 20, 2010

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 33 of 149
TheSPLC Intelligence Report O

Online Investigative Resourc

The Intelligence Report is offering free online resources to help law enforcement track 

extremist activity in their communities and conduct criminal investigations. Check out our 

website and see all that we have to offer. www.intelligencereport.org

Intelligence Report

We’mo

Ever seen tattoos like these while on duty? 

Everything you wanted to know about 

Racist Skinheads and more is available 

on our website. www.intelligencereport.org

Intelligence Fil

intelligencereport.org/files

Read our in-depth profiles about hate movement leaders and their groups. Learn what 

motivates them, how they act and how your 

community may be affected. 

Hatewatch.or

intelligencereport.org/blog

Don’t wait for the printed edition to get updates about hate groups and extremists. Read 

our online Hatewatch blog for current events 

in the world of hate. And subscribe to our free 

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intelligencereport.org/hatemap

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Learn more about our ree trainings tailored for individual l

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400 Washington Ave

Montgomery, AL 36104

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 34 of 149
ATTACHMENT F 

United States v. Winston Shrout 

3:15-cr-00438-JO 

‘The Lawless Ones’ 

Special Report, 2nd Edition 

The Anti-Defamation League (2012) 

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 35 of 149
2ND EDITION

THE LAWLESS ONES

THE RESURGENCE OF THE SOVEREIGN CITIZEN MOVEMENT

SPECIAL 

REPORT

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 36 of 149
i

The Lawless Ones:

The Resurgence of the Sovereign Citizen Movement

CONTENTS

Key Findings.................................................................................................................................................... iii

I. Introduction to the 2012 Edition ....................................................................................................................1

II. Sovereign Citizen Ideology ............................................................................................................................3

III. Organization of the Sovereign Citizen Movement........................................................................................6

The Sovereign Citizen Guru...........................................................................................................................6

Sovereign Citizen Groups ..............................................................................................................................7

Sovereign Citizens on the Internet .................................................................................................................8

IV. Composition and Makeup of the Sovereign Citizen Movement..................................................................10

Personality Types.........................................................................................................................................10

Demographics..............................................................................................................................................11

Prisoners as Sovereign Citizens....................................................................................................................12

Law Enforcement ........................................................................................................................................14

Exporting Sovereign Citizenship..................................................................................................................14

V. Sovereign Citizen Tactics: Paper Terrorism .................................................................................................16

Bogus Liens.................................................................................................................................................16

Other Harassing Attempts ...........................................................................................................................18

VI. Sovereign Citizen Tactics: Counterfeit Documents and Entities.................................................................20

Fictitious Documents and Identification ......................................................................................................20

Fictitious Financial Instruments...................................................................................................................22

Fictitious Law Enforcement Entities............................................................................................................23

Fictitious Nations, Quasi-Nations and Tribes...............................................................................................24

VII. Sovereign Citizen Tactics: Frauds and Scams............................................................................................26

Mortgage/Foreclosure Schemes...................................................................................................................27

VIII. Sovereign Citizen Tactics: Threats, Takeovers and Violence....................................................................32

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 37 of 149
iii

Key Findings

 Significant Growth. The sovereign citizen movement is an extreme anti-government 

movement whose members believe the government has no authority over them. It began a 

resurgence of activity, including criminal activity, in 2009 that has shown no signs of stopping. 

In 2012, the sovereign citizen movement is currently one of the most problematic domestic 

extremist movements in the United States.

 Potential for Violence. Sovereign citizen criminal activity includes violent acts, exemplified 

recently by the brutal murder of two West Memphis police officers at the hands of a father 

and son pair of sovereign citizens in May 2010. More violent encounters have occurred 

between police and sovereign citizens since then. Spontaneous sovereign citizen violence, 

especially during traffic stops and visits to residences, poses a significant risk to law 

enforcement officers and public officials.

 Harassing Liens a Major Problem. More widespread than violence is a set of tactics known as 

“paper terrorism,” in which sovereign citizens use legal filings to harass, intimidate, and 

retaliate against public officials, law enforcement officers, and others. Most common is the 

filing of bogus liens on the property of perceived enemies. Though a number of laws were 

passed in the 1990s to deal with this problem, sovereign citizens remain undeterred and 

continue to file such harassing liens in large numbers.

 Exploiting the Mortgage/Foreclosure Crisis. Self-appointed “gurus” in the sovereign citizen 

movement have actively been exploiting the foreclosure crisis, crisscrossing the country 

promoting schemes and scams to desperate homeowners, while falsely claiming that such 

schemes can save people’s homes. Other sovereign citizens are even brazenly seizing homes 

left empty because of foreclosures and claiming the homes for their own.

 Infecting Prisons. As a result of imprisoned sovereign citizens continuing to recruit and teach 

their ideology while behind bars, a growing number of federal and state prisoners are 

becoming sovereign citizens or using the “paper terrorism” tactics of the movement to 

retaliate against judges, prosecutors and others involved in their case. Prison officials have so 

far had little luck in stemming the growth of this movement in prisons.

 Growing “Moorish” Movement. Though the sovereign citizen movement is still largely white 

(and contains some white supremacist members), in recent years a growing African- American 

offshoot of the sovereign citizen movement, often called the “Moorish” movement, has been 

gaining strength, teaching sovereign citizen ideas and tactics to a new pool of potential recruits.

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 38 of 149
1

I. Introduction to the 2012 Edition

In recent years, Americans have witnessed a wave of anti-government sentiment sweeping the country. 

In the mainstream, this manifested itself in anti-incumbent attitudes as well as the growth of 

movements like the Tea Party.

Out on the fringes of American society, the growth of anti-government sentiment spawned the 

proliferation of extreme anti-government conspiracy theories and the resurgence of anti-government 

extremist groups and movements. Of these, the movement that exhibited the most rapid growth of 

membership and activity—including violent and criminal activity—was the so-called “sovereign 

citizen” movement. 

The sovereign citizen movement, though it has existed for decades, has traditionally garnered so little 

attention from the media that most Americans are not even aware that it exists, much less that it has a 

long track record of criminality and violence. Part of the reason for this lack of attention is that the 

ideology of the movement is complicated, its tactics and activities are unusual, and adherents of the 

movement typically do not form organized groups that can draw more attention. Usually, the 

movement operates “under the radar” of public attention; even when attention is drawn to the 

activities of adherents, the media often does not understand their connection to an organized 

movement.

Occasionally the sovereign citizen movement does come to public attention, usually through a 

shocking act such as standoff or shootout. In 2010, such an act occurred. On May 20, 2010, a 45-yearold sovereign citizen with Ohio and Florida connections, Jerry Kane, was driving along I-40 in eastern 

Arkansas when he was pulled over by West Memphis, Arkansas, police officers running a drug 

interdiction operation.

Kane, travelling with his 16-year-old son, Joseph, a dedicated disciple of his father’s extreme theories, 

exited the mini-van and began talking to, then arguing with, the officers. Joseph Kane then jumped out 

of the mini-van with an AK-47, opening fire on the unsuspecting officers almost immediately, hitting

one officer 11 times and the other 14 times, killing them both. Ninety minutes later, after authorities 

located the Kane’s vehicle, a second shootout occurred, in which the Crittenden County sheriff and his 

chief deputy were both wounded, and the Kanes were killed.

Shortly after this tragic incident, the Anti-Defamation League released the first edition of this report, 

designed to draw attention to the growing tide of sovereign citizen activity and violence across the 

country and to explain the current trends and tactics within the movement. 

Unfortunately, in the nearly two years since the West Memphis shootout and the report’s release, the 

sovereign citizen movement has shown no signs of slowing down. Instead, from every quarter, there 

have been more violent confrontations, more threats and acts of intimidation and harassment, and 

more scams and frauds. 

Because of the continued threat that this extreme movement poses to the safety and well-being of law 

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enforcement officers, public officials, and the public at large, the Anti-Defamation League has issued a 

new and updated version of The Lawless Ones, showing many of the most recent criminal incidents 

that have come out of the sovereign citizen movement and highlighting the main trends of the 

movement.

The resurgence of the sovereign citizen movement has already caused problems across the country. If 

the movement’s growth is allowed to continue unchecked, further acts of violence are inevitable, 

putting government officials, law enforcement officers, and private citizens all at risk. An even larger 

number of people will fall victim to sovereign citizen acts of harassment and intimidation, as well as to 

their frauds and scams. This report should serve as a warning call.

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II. Sovereign Citizen Ideology

The sovereign citizen movement began in the early 1970s with a single group, the Posse Comitatus, 

but its ideology did not really mature until the 1980s, when a serious recession and simultaneous farm 

crisis created a ready pool of potential recruits. The Posse expanded and a number of other, similar 

groups formed around the country. By the end of the decade, the Posse had died away but the 

movement it helped create lived on. During the mid to late 1990s, the sovereign citizen movement 

received another burst of energy, forming scores of vigilante “common law courts.”

As it evolved, the sovereign citizen movement developed an ideology centered on a massive conspiracy 

theory. Though different sovereign theorists all have their own varying versions of this conspiracy, 

including exactly when it started and how it manifested itself, the theories all share the belief that many 

years ago an insidious conspiracy infiltrated the U.S. government and subverted it, slowly replacing 

parts of the original, legitimate government (often referred to by sovereigns as the “de jure” 

government) with an illegitimate, tyrannical government (the “de facto” government).

As a result, sovereign citizens believe that today there are really two governments: the “illegitimate” 

government that everyone else thinks is genuine and the original government that existed before the 

conspiracy allegedly infiltrated it. They claim allegiance to the original government and disdain the 

“illegitimate” one. To them the original government was a utopian minimalist government which never 

interfered with the citizenry; in their fantasy history of the United States, they believe that people 

followed “God’s laws” rather than “man’s laws.”

Sovereign citizens (adherents may also refer to themselves by such terms as “constitutionalists,” 

“freemen,” and “state citizens”) make many efforts to separate themselves from the “illegitimate” 

government. Some will even renounce their U.S. citizenship (by which they intend only to renounce 

any ties with the “illegitimate” government, not the country itself). Very common is for sovereign 

citizens to use punctuation in their name—such as commas, colons, and semi-colons—to separate 

their first and middle names (their “Christian appellation”) from their last name, which many think is 

their “government-given” name. Thus Michigan militia leader Mark Koernke, when he also became a 

sovereign citizen, began writing his name as “Mark Gregory,, Koernke.”

Sovereign citizens believe that the “illegitimate government,” largely through the 14th Amendment, 

enslaved all Americans by creating a special class of citizenship, “citizens of the United States,” 

members of which would have no rights—only whatever privileges the government deigned to grant 

them. The government tricked Americans into becoming “citizens of the United States” by offering 

them privileges, such as driver’s licenses and Social Security, which were actually hidden contracts with 

the government through which Americans unknowingly gave away their sovereignty.

Sovereign citizens believe that Americans can tear up these so-called contracts, regain their sovereignty 

and become immune to the “illegitimate” government, which they claim has no jurisdiction over them.

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As a result, sovereign citizens eschew taxes, Social Security, and almost all licenses, registrations and 

permits. Many sovereign citizens even believe that using zip codes is a contract with the “illegitimate” 

government and thus will use special forms of address that they think allows them to avoid a contract 

while still getting their mail delivered. Representative examples taken from actual sovereign citizen 

documents include (names, street names and numbers have been changed):

John Doe

c/o 110 West 15th Street, #20-P Austin, Texas 

Republic

Postal Zone 78705/tdc

John Doe

c/o 1379 S. Lipton Avenue #140

Tucson, Arizona state

Postal Zone 85719/tdc

John Doe

c/o 12000 N. Peachtree Road

Grants Pass, Oregon near Postal Zone 97527

Jane Doe

Postal Zone Exempt Non Domestic c/o: 

2300 Everett Rd., T.D.C. Kapa’a, Kaua’I, 

Haai’I, (u.S.A.)

near (96746) C. F.

John Doe

2nd Judicial District

4389 W. Ave. #123

Lancaster, California Republic

Jane Doe, Sui Juris

Non-Resident, Non-Domestic Delivery c/o 

HC 24, Box 142

Witt Springs, Arkansas Republic

United States of America

The result of sovereign citizen ideology is that its adherents believe the government (including police 

and the judicial system) has no jurisdiction over them. To give a typical example, in April 2010 in Brush, 

Colorado, after several traffic and other violations, David Hemby told the Brush City Council that he 

wasn’t subject to city ordinances because he was a “sovereign citizen.” Sovereigns also are attracted to 

setting up their own parallel governmental institutions (such as their own courts or grand juries or even 

law enforcement agencies) in opposition to those of the “illegitimate” government.

Sovereign citizens can rationalize disobeying or ignoring virtually any law or regulation, major or minor. 

This, combined with their antagonistic attitude towards government, can put them on a collision course 

with virtually any form of authority. For example, in February 2012, a Chelan County, Washington, jury 

convicted sovereign citizen Robert Stewart of seven counts of animal cruelty and unsafe confinement of 

horses, as well as one count of second degree criminal trespass. In September 2011, the Humane 

Society had seized five horses from Stewart that were suffering from malnutrition and injury; one later 

had to be put down. A month later, Stewart walked onto the property of the director of the Humane 

Society to take photographs of her home. Stewart, who believes local authorities have no jurisdiction 

over him, had claimed that they could not prosecute him because he was a sovereign citizen. 

Many sovereign citizens refuse to stop engaging in their clashes with government even after repeated 

run-ins with the law. For example, Tampa, Florida, sovereign citizen Emilio Ippolito was convicted in 

1998 of obstruction of justice and sending threatening letters to federal officials and was sentenced to 11 

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years in federal prison. His daughter, also a sovereign citizen, was similarly convicted and actually died 

in prison. However, after his release, Ippolito, who is 85 years old, went right back to sovereign citizen 

activities and was arrested twice in 2011, once for impersonating a public officer and once for practicing 

law without a license.

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III. Organization of the Sovereign Citizen Movement

The sovereign citizen movement is unusual in that, unlike many other extreme movements, it is not 

generally oriented around groups. Though sovereign citizen groups do form, and sometimes certain 

types of sovereign citizen groups even become popular for a time, the default structure of the 

sovereign citizen movement is that of a large mass of individuals or loosely aligned and informal/ad 

hoc groups, led by a number of sovereign citizen “gurus,” who provide leadership and inspiration as 

well as new sovereign citizen ideas and tactics.

The Sovereign Citizen Guru

Gurus may refer to themselves by a variety of terms (such as “constitutional scholar,” “private 

attorney general,” etc.; the list is endless), often claiming to be some sort of legal or constitutional 

expert (though there are few if any actual attorneys in the movement, as the movement believes they 

are illegitimate). Though some may have other jobs, many are full-time gurus, making a living by 

selling materials and holding seminars. Some will offer their services as “legal consultants,” while 

others will also engage in scams and frauds. Some do all of these things simultaneously. When 

sovereign citizen groups do form, they will sometimes be teams of sovereign citizen gurus working 

together, such as TeamLaw of Colorado, a collection of several sovereign citizen presenters.

The most common guru activity is the seminar, often held in hotel meeting rooms and sometimes 

attended by hundreds of people, from long-time sovereign citizens to potential recruits. For example, 

in 2010, sovereign citizen guru Tim Turner and some of his disciples organized “America Can Be 

Free” seminars, usually with the help of local sovereign citizens, ostensibly offering people the chance 

to “free yourself from the debt prison” for the admittance price of $405 and one pre-1964 Silver 

Dollar (sovereign citizens believe that only gold and silver constitute “constitutional” money, so this is 

a symbolic gesture). They held a “4-Day Super Advanced Enforcement Seminar” in Seattle, 

Washington, from May 20-23, 2010, then followed it up with another seminar on May 29-30 near 

Boise, Idaho, which they advertised would actually be held in a conference room of the Meridian, 

Idaho, Police Department. Similar seminars are regularly held in most areas of the country by various 

sovereign citizen gurus.

Since the 1980s, some sovereign citizens have even started their own “law schools.” One of the first to 

emerge was the “Barrister’s Inn School of Common Law” out of Boise, Idaho. It no longer

exists, but one of its leaders still runs the eponymous George Gordon School of Law out of Isabella, 

Missouri. Other sovereign citizen “law schools” operating today include the Texas-based “Freedom 

School” and the Minnesota-based “Erwin Rommel School of Common Law.”

There are scores of sovereign citizen gurus across the United States. Some, such as Richard James

McDonald of California (or “Sir Richard James, McDonald,” as he often refers to himself) and

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David Wynn Miller of Wisconsin (or “PLENIPOTENIARY-JUDGE: David-Wynn: Miller”), have 

been prominent gurus for decades. Others, such as Jerry Kane, the man involved in the West 

Memphis shootings, are newer to the scene.

Among a few of the other more prominent gurus active today are Winston Shrout, Tim Turner, Sam 

Kennedy, Jean Keating, and Jack Smith; they may hold seminars around the country. New gurus 

constantly emerge. One individual, Robert Kelly of Oregon, has long occupied a special role in the 

movement, as the publisher of the Americans Bulletin, a bimonthly newspaper that acts as the “New 

York Times” of the sovereign citizen movement. Many new sovereign citizen theories first see print 

there.

The most influential sovereign citizen gurus are the ones who contribute new lore to the sovereign

citizen canon, coming up with new pseudo-legal and pseudo-historical theories. Most sovereign gurus, 

though, repackage and repeat already existing sovereign citizen theories, or create variations

of them. When Roger Elvick, an elder statesman in the sovereign citizen movement, came up with a

package of new theories in 1999 that he called “redemption,” within only months a number of gurus 

were holding “redemption” seminars around the country, a practice that continues to this day. One 

such disciple, Winston Shrout of Oregon, has now become a “master” of his own, and a variety of 

lesser gurus now offer seminars based on his ideas (Kane was one such).

Some gurus, though, have theories so arcane that few others could ever easily repeat them. Perhaps 

the best example is David Wynn Miller, who has actually created (and uses) a completely alternative 

grammar for the English language, which he claims allows him to master the judicial system. Or, as 

Miller puts it on his Web site, “FOR THIS PLENIPOTENTIARY-JUDGE: David-Wynn: Miller'sKNOWLEDGE OF THESE CORRECT-SENTENCE-STRUCTURES-COMMUNICATIONSYNTAX-LANGUAGE=(C.-S.-S.-C.-S.-L.) IS WITH THE CLAIMS BY THE QUANTUMLANGUAGE-SYNTAX-NOW-TIME-FACTS.”

Sovereign Citizen Groups

In addition to gurus and their followers, sovereign citizen groups do emerge from time to time. Often 

they are informal groups of sovereign citizens in a particular geographic area, who meet together to 

share ideas or sometimes host a travelling guru. Sometimes they may give themselves names, such as a 

“constitutional study group” (not to be confused with similarly named groups started by Tea Partytype activists).

Occasionally sovereigns may form other types of groups. One of the more common types is a group 

that duplicates, resembles, or emulates a governmental entity. In the 1980s, for example, a Utah 

sovereign citizen named Walt Mann started the “township” movement, urging people to form their 

own independent “townships.” In the 1990s, vigilante “common law courts” became extremely 

popular in the sovereign citizen movement, with over a hundred forming. A few common law courts 

still exist today, such as the “Sovereign People’s Court for the United States” in Nevada, which has 

had over 100 people attend some of its meetings in recent years. Various sovereign citizens may dub 

themselves “private postmasters” or “private attorneys general.”

In the 2000s, no one such type of group has predominated. Some sovereign citizens, most notably a 

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group called Guardians of a Free Republic, have tried to create their own “grand jury” system (a 

sovereign citizen tactic dating back to the 1980s), arguing that such entities can nullify any law or 

judicial ruling. The most popular sovereign citizen group in the U.S. today is a spin-off of the 

Guardians led by Alabama-based guru Tim Turner (aka James Timothy Turner). Calling itself the 

Republics for the united States of America (lower case “u” intentional on their part) or RuSA, the 

group is a loose collection of Turner followers and local sovereign citizen groups. Larger sovereign 

citizen groups tend to be unstable and fractious.

One recent innovation, which may or may not prove popular, has been promoted by a few gurus, 

notably James Thomas McBride of Ohio. This is the so-called “Three Notary Panel.” This is an 

expansion of an older sovereign notion that notary publics actually have extensive powers, of which 

most people are entirely unaware, using the “Notary Protest Process.” Three notaries can form a 

special panel, or a sovereign citizen may select three notaries to form such a panel to help him or her, 

and when the panel convenes, it may subpoena people, authorize bogus liens, rule laws 

unconstitutional, and more. As a result, in some places, sovereign citizens are attempting to become 

notaries, to avail themselves of this “power.” As with so many other recent sovereign citizen tactics, 

its advocates often suggest these notary panels can be used to fight mortgage foreclosure.

Sovereign Citizens on the Internet

As is true for most types of extremist movements, the sovereign citizen movement has come to rely 

heavily on the Internet for propaganda, recruitment, and funds. The Internet is particularly important 

to sovereign citizen gurus, as it gives them an inexpensive and reliable way to introduce people to their 

pseudo-legal theories and to promote their seminars and products (such as instructional manuals, form 

templates, and DVDs). It also is useful for sovereign citizen con artists to reach gullible victims. As a 

result, an increasing number of sovereign citizen gurus create their own Web sites.

From the perspective of rank-and-file or prospective sovereign citizens, the Internet is full of 

discussion forums and other venues where sovereign citizens can exchange information about 

strategies, their own experiences, their favorite mentors, and more. In the past few years, a number of 

sovereign citizens have aggressively exploited the new social media, utilizing social networking Web 

sites such as Facebook to connect and recruit, and video hosting services like YouTube to market 

various gurus and their theories. Sovereign citizen videos in particular are becoming increasingly 

common on-line; many gurus will even put up videos of a sample seminar, or portion of it, to market 

themselves and their theories. Sovereign citizens may also film traffic stops or other encounters with 

police, then upload the videos to the Internet.

In addition to these more or less standard ways for extremists to exploit the Internet, sovereign 

citizens have used the Internet in less common ways as well. For example, they have taken advantage 

of the recent emergence of document hosting sites (essentially like YouTube but for PDF files) to 

upload thousands of documents, especially templates and examples of various sovereign citizen 

paperwork. It is easy in 2012 to find downloadable templates that allow people to declare themselves 

sovereign citizens, file bogus liens on perceived enemies, or engage in other harassing or intimidating 

letters and filings.

They have also turned to the Internet to try to help solve a perennial problem that sovereign citizens 

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face: county and state officials refusing to accept and file their bogus documents. Although 

unfortunately some county recorder offices and secretary of state offices continue to accept all 

sovereign citizen filings, no matter what problems they may cause (sometimes out of ignorance, 

sometimes because of state law, but often out of a fear of being sued), a growing number of 

governmental recording/filing agencies now refuse to accept such pseudo-legal documents, thus 

stymieing the harassing or other intentions of the sovereign citizens trying to file them.

As a result, several on-line entities have emerged to accept sovereign citizen filings as “third party 

recording entities.” The National Republic Registry, for example, out of Mansfield, Texas, bills itself as 

“YOUR Solution to Hassle Free Public Recording.” GetNotice is a similar site operating from Fort 

Collins, Colorado; so too is America’s Public Record, based in Scottsdale, Arizona.

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IV. Composition and Makeup of the Sovereign Citizen Movement

The loose and unorganized nature of the sovereign citizen movement makes its size difficult to gauge, 

but it is clear that its membership is well into the tens of thousands, at the very least. The composition 

of its membership is somewhat easier to determine.

Personality Types

Though an individual may get involved in the sovereign citizen movement for any number of reasons, 

three types of people turn up again and again when one examines its membership:

 People who are financially stressed. Whether the stress is due to unemployment, bankruptcy, 

creditors, spousal or child support, tax problems or something else, the desperation that comes 

with financial troubles can be a powerful motivator. Though many different extremist 

movements have tried to take advantage of economic troubles over the years to recruit new 

adherents, the sovereign citizen movement has an advantage in that it doesn’t just offer people 

targets to blame for their woes (the banks, the illegitimate government, etc.), but it can also 

seem to offer relief in the form of a variety of pseudo-legal “solutions” that offer almost 

magical ways to get out of foreclosure, debt, or other financial troubles.

 People who are angry at government, especially government regulation. Some people develop 

intense antipathy toward government rules and regulations, from property codes to tax laws. 

Every unsuccessful encounter with the government simply makes them angrier. Consequently, 

when they encounter the sovereign citizen movement, with its alleged ways to get around laws 

and regulations, as well as tools of retaliation against government officials, they find the 

movement very attractive.

 Con artists and people who want “something for nothing.” The sovereign citizen movement is 

full of theories that promise people quick riches or other seemingly magical benefits, from 

being able to eliminate a mortgage to be able to hide one’s income in a series of trusts and 

make it immune to government scrutiny. As a result, the movement appeals powerfully to 

people who are always seeking a quick buck or something for nothing. It also appeals to con 

artists and confidence men and women who can use the movement’s theories to create 

schemes to attract money from the greedy or the innocent alike.

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Demographics

Demographically, most sovereign citizens tend to be middle-aged or older. Many of the leaders of the 

movement are in their 60s and 70s. This has sometimes caused law enforcement officers to 

underestimate a sovereign’s potential for violence, as there are fewer elderly violent offenders in 

general, but unfortunately there have been many armed confrontations between police and older 

sovereign citizens. However, the resurgence of the movement in the past several years have brought in 

a lot of new adherents, including young ones. The majority of sovereign citizens are male, but there is 

a sizable female minority and even a few female sovereign citizen gurus.

In its early decades, the sovereign citizen movement was overwhelmingly white. Indeed, a number of 

its founders and pioneers were explicit white supremacists. Today, there are still some white 

supremacists in the movement, typically followers of Christian Identity, a racist and anti-Semitic 

religious sect whose anti-government beliefs are often compatible with movements such as the militia, 

tax protest and sovereign citizen movements. 

However, since the 1990s, the percentage of non-white sovereign citizens has increased substantially. 

The basic ideology of the movement is inherently anti-government, rather than white supremacist; 

moreover, it is infinitely adaptable to different circumstances. As a result, there are Asian sovereign 

citizens, Hispanic sovereign citizens, and so forth. Many members of the native Hawaiian secessionist 

movement are sovereign citizens.

It is among African-Americans, though, that the sovereign citizen movement has really seen growth 

over the past 15 years or so, so much so that an entire sub-movement of African-American sovereign 

citizens, who often describe themselves as “Moors,” “Moorish,” or “Mu’urish,” has developed. The 

Moorish movement started as a mixture of ideas from the sovereign citizen movement and a religious 

sect called the Moorish Science Temple (MST). The movement has expanded beyond MST members 

to include other African-Americans (and, oddly, a few whites), while there are many MST members 

who do not adhere to sovereign citizen ideology at all, but there remain many connections between the 

Moorish movement and the MST.

The Moorish movement arose in the 1990s in northeastern cities and southeastern rural areas, which 

still tend to be its areas of strength. Adherents subscribe to all of the popular traditional sovereign 

citizen theories, but have added additional, Afro-centric pseudo-legal theories, such as the notion that a 

1787 treaty between the United States and Morocco somehow gives “Moors” in the United States a set 

of special privileges and immunities. Ironically, most Moorish movement members have no idea that 

their ideology is descended from an extreme right-wing belief system created in part by white 

supremacists (though Moors frequently will cooperate with white sovereign citizens).

The tactics that Moorish movement adherents engage in are essentially identical to those practiced by 

other sovereign citizens. A few recent examples illustrate this:

 Elyria, Ohio, March 2012: Moorish sovereign citizen Kareen Tucker received a sentence of 25 

years in prison on robbery, drug and kidnapping charges for a 2010 incident in which he and 

two other men kidnapped a man, then held his girlfriend and her three children at gunpoint 

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while demanding money. During his trial, Tucker, who defended himself, claimed that he had 

“diplomatic immunity” and that, because the Uniform Commercial Code allegedly governed 

law in the United States, he couldn’t face criminal charges because he did not have a “contract” 

with the state of Ohio. 

 Akron, Ohio, May 2011: Moorish sovereign citizen Chico Rhasiatry of Akron, Ohio, was 

convicted for unauthorized practice of law, criminal trespassing and obstructing official 

business. Rhasiatry had introduced himself as “counsel” during the trial of another Moorish 

adherent, Demond El-Muur, and told the judge that El-Muur was an “Aboriginal” whose case 

had to be heard in a Moorish jurisdiction. Prior to his sentencing, he was found in contempt 

for again trying to represent someone and sentenced to a month in jail for this new offense.

 Detroit, Michigan, March 2010: A Detroit resident, Andre Frank Hardy, led police on an 

extensive chase rather than pull over for a traffic stop for expired plates (Hardy also allegedly 

had six outstanding warrants and a suspended license). Taken into custody, Hardy told police 

that, as a member of the Moorish Nation, the U.S. government had no authority over him. 

 Newport News, Virginia, March 2010: A Newport News, Virginia, sovereign, Amun Asaru 

Heh-El, was brought to court to face four counts of driving without a license. Heh-El allegedly 

told the judge that he was not under the authority of the United States, and subsequently left 

the courtroom during a recess before the trial began (coincidentally, that afternoon the judge 

had to deal with a white sovereign citizen couple over a different issue).

A number of African-American sovereign citizens are also involved with fringe religious groups of 

different types. The most common such group, of course, is the MST. The Georgia-based 

“Nuwaubian Nation” is another fringe religion with a number of sovereign citizen members. From 

time to time, adherents of the Nation of Islam may also become sovereign citizens. One African 

American sovereign citizen in Tennessee claimed in March 2010 that he was a follower of Yahweh ben 

Yahweh, leader of the Nation of Yahweh, a black separatist religious sect.

This trend is not, however, limited to African-American sovereign citizens. Some white sovereign 

citizens also belong to fringe religious groups. In recent years, for example, some members of the 

polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints, a controversial and radical offshoot of the 

Mormon church, have sported sovereign citizen license plates.

Prisoners as Sovereign Citizens

Since the 1990s, hundreds, possibly thousands, of sovereign citizens have been sent to county jails or 

state or federal prisons. Though imprisoned, many of them have seen no need to curtail their 

sovereign citizen activities. Some sovereign citizens have continued their paper terrorism tactics

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from behind bars, while a number of them have also been teaching the ideology of the sovereign 

citizen movement to other prisoners.

As a result, over the last ten years, a wave of prison-based sovereign citizen activity has swept the 

country, much of it generated by “traditional” criminals such as drug dealers or thieves, some of 

whom have actually become sovereign citizens themselves, with others simply trying some sovereign 

citizen tactics because they have been told they would work. In the mid to late 2000s, for example, as 

uncovered by an in-depth investigation by the Washington Monthly, a number of inner city Baltimore 

drug dealers have used sovereign citizen arguments during their trials. One public defender described 

it as “an infection that was invading our client population of pre-trial detainees.”

Some recent examples include:

 Southport Correctional Facility, Chemung County, New York, 2010: Prison officials charged 

sovereign citizen inmate Jose A. Fuentes with impermissible filing of documents, copyrighting 

his name and disobeying a direct order following their discovery that Fuentes, in a letter to his 

wife, directed his spouse to file harassing Uniform Commercial Code documents against 

corrections employees. He was found guilty of the charges; in 2011, a New York appeals 

court confirmed the conviction.

 Marion, Illinois, April 2010: Daniel Petersen, one of the leaders of the Montana Freemen, 

who engaged in an 81-day standoff with the federal government in 1996, was sentenced to 71⁄2 

years in prison for filing bogus liens against three federal judges. Petersen was still in federal 

prison at the time he filed the liens, serving out the 15-year prison sentence handed to him by 

U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, one of the victims of Petersen’s liens. Petersen’s full 

scheme reveals the ingenuity and energy of sovereign citizens. He not only filed liens against 

the federal judges, but also issued bounties for their arrests. Then he created a phony 

company and recruited other inmates to invest in it, promising them large sums of money 

after he collected the money ($100 trillion, plus interest, he told them) that the government 

allegedly owed him.

 Queens, New York, March 2009: A Queens County court declared “null and void” a series of 

bogus liens placed on Queens prosecutors who had been involved in the case of Ronald 

Thompson, a convicted murderer serving a 20 years to life sentence at Sing Sing. Declaring 

that the prosecutors had violated his “copyright” by using his name without his permission, 

he claimed they owed him more than $1 million.

 Miami, Florida, May 2009: Miami resident Marlon T. Moore was arrested for filing tax forms 

that claimed a total return of $14 trillion. Moore had recently been released from federal 

prison after serving a six-year sentence on money laundering charges. According to a former 

fellow prisoner, Moore and another inmate, Willie Cameron, had become sovereign citizens

while in a federal prison near Orlando. Cameron also allegedly filed a fraudulent return, but 

only for $53,000 or so; he was also arrested. 

 Terre Haute, Indiana, April 2008: Russell Dean Landers, another imprisoned member of the 

Montana Freemen, was sentenced to an additional 15 years in prison; Landers was one of 

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three federal inmates who had demanded millions of dollars from prison officials for using 

their “copyrighted” names without their permission. They were convicted of conspiracy and 

mailing threatening communications with the intent to extort.

Law Enforcement

Amazing as it may seem, especially given that police are among the most common targets of 

sovereign citizens, sometimes even current or former law enforcement officers can get lured into the 

sovereign citizen movement. Though this is rare, in the past few years there have unfortunately been 

several such incidents, including:

 Sarasota, Florida, May 2011: The Sarasota Police Department fired officer Tom Laughlin 

because of his alleged involvement in the sovereign citizen movement. In the spring of 2010, 

reportedly at the urging of his older brother, Jimmy, a sovereign citizen adherent, Laughlin 

had filed documents claiming that he was an “American National Sovereign” and no longer a 

citizen of the United States. A few months later, the two brothers were involved in a traffic 

stop in St. Augustine, following which Jimmy sent demands to the state trooper who had 

pulled him over for over $8 million in “penalties.” Jimmy Laughlin was charged with 

extortion, though those charges were later dropped. However, he was arrested on fraud 

charges for attempting to pay off a significant credit card debt using a bogus sovereign citizen 

“straw man” account. The two brothers also filed other sovereign citizen filings. Following 

these incidents, the Sarasota police opened an internal investigation on Tom Laughlin that 

resulted eventually in his firing. Laughlin appealed his firing to the Civil Service Board, but 

abandoned the attempt during his May 2011 hearing.

 Minneapolis, Minnesota, May 2010: Former Minneapolis police officer Douglas Earl Leiter 

received a 10 year sentence for his role as the leader of a sovereign citizen/tax protest group 

called Common Law Venue, which taught people how to use bogus trusts to evade taxes.

 Las Vegas, Nevada, March 2010: Jan Lindsey, a retired FBI agent from Henderson, Nevada, 

pleaded guilty to a felony count of tax evasion for evading $109,000 in personal income taxes. 

Lindsey was one of four sovereign citizens and tax protesters arrested by the FBI in May 2009 

following a three-year investigation into money laundering, tax evasion, and illegal weapons.

Exporting Sovereign Citizenship

The sovereign citizen movement originated in the United States and for many years was present 

nowhere else. In the mid to late 1990s, however, the sovereign citizen movement and its cousin tax 

protest movement began to appear in Canada, primarily the western provinces of British Columbia, 

Albert, and Saskatchewan. It was both imported into Canada by Canadians who had become exposed 

to sovereign citizen theories and exported to Canada by American sovereign citizen gurus who saw 

Canada as an easy way to expand their seminar audiences. David Wynn Miller was one such American 

guru who held seminars in Canada, at least until Canadian authorities banned him from the country. 

As a result, the movement now has a fairly strong presence in Canada—a presence that has 

experienced a resurgence in recent years just as the American sovereign citizen movement has.

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More recently, sovereign citizen activists have been trying the same thing with regard to Australia and 

New Zealand. Despite the great distances, sovereign citizen guru Winston Shrout has held seminars in 

Perth, Brisbane, and Adelaide in the past couple of years. David Wynn Miller has also held seminars 

in Australia—and has been banned from the country in the past, though despite this he apparently 

scheduled a major multi-city tour of Australia for the summer of 2010. Sovereigns now have at least a 

foothold in Australia and New Zealand. 

The newest target for the sovereign citizen movement has been Great Britain. In early 2010, 

sovereign citizen guru Winston Shrout visited London, while would-be British sovereign citizens have 

been imbibing the ideology from the Internet. Since then, some British sovereign citizens have 

already uploaded YouTube videos portraying or describing traffic stop encounters with British police. 

One sovereign citizen-related incident has even become “international.” In January 2011, a federal 

grand jury in Nashville, Tennessee, issued a 21-count indictment against a British gun company 

owner, Guy Savage, and four Americans for allegedly engaging in illegal overseas arms sales. The 

American defendants subsequently reached plea deals with the government, but Savage decided 

instead to represent himself and use sovereign citizen arguments and tactics in his defense, including 

sending the federal court a demand for nearly $250 million, claiming that the court—and indeed, the 

U.S. government—was a “legal fiction.” The U.S. government is attempting to extradite Savage from 

Great Britain to stand trial in the United States. 

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V. Sovereign Citizen Tactics: Paper Terrorism

The array of tactics that sovereign citizens utilize is diverse and ever-changing. Some sovereign citizen 

tactics date all the way back to the 1970s, while others are brand-new. Sovereign citizen gurus 

probably read more statutes and codes than most attorneys or legal scholars, but they do so for 

entirely different reasons and in very different ways. They look for passages they can misuse, recast, 

take out of context, or exploit. Any phrase or definition can become fodder for a new pseudo-legal 

argument.

The most common sovereign citizen tactics fall into the realm of what has come to be termed “paper 

terrorism.” Paper terrorism involves the use of bogus legal documents and filings, or the misuse of 

legitimate ones, to intimidate, harass, threaten, or retaliate against public officials, law enforcement 

officers, or private citizens. Acts of paper terrorism can range from simple and straightforward acts, 

such as frivolous lawsuits, to more complex strategies, such as filing fraudulent IRS forms alleging that 

the victim has been paid large sums of money, in order to “sic” the IRS on him or her.

Bogus Liens

Among the oldest paper terrorism tactics is the use of bogus or nuisance liens filed on the property of 

victims (often law enforcement officers or public officials). This has the effect of clouding the title of 

homes or other property belonging to the victim, who must hire an attorney to clear the title, at 

considerable expense in time and money. Despite dozens of laws passed in different states in the

1990s and 2000s to deal with the problem, it still is a very effective tactic, and commonly used by 

sovereign citizens.

Some of the many recent incidents include:

 Spokane, Washington, March 2012: A federal judge sentenced federal jury sovereign citizen 

Ronald James Davenport of Chewelah, Washington, to 41 months in prison after his 

conviction in November 2011 on four counts of filing more than $20 billion in bogus liens 

against government officials. The victims had all been involved in a civil case against 

Davenport for unpaid taxes. 

 Devine, Texas, February 2012: Podiatrist and sovereign citizen Donald Robinson of Devine, 

Texas, pleaded guilty in state district court to fraudulent filing of a financial statement for filing 

a lien on the home of a local police officer following a traffic stop. He was sentenced to two 

years of probation and 100 hours of community service. He had previously spent time in 

federal prison for filing false income tax returns.

 Baltimore, Maryland, February 2012: A federal judge sentenced Maryland sovereign citizen 

and tax protester Andrew Isaac Chance to 65 months in prison for filing a $1.3 billion lien 

against a federal prosecutor (as well as a similar lien against a state prosecutor) involved in taxrelated cases against him. 

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 Skagit County, Washington, January 2012: Sovereign citizen and tax protester Timothy 

Garrison received a 42-month federal prison sentence for his involvement in a tax fraud 

scheme. He had also filed more than $500 million in bogus liens against a variety of public 

officials following a traffic stop. 

 Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, January 2012: Thomas Wayne Eilertson and Lisa Joan 

Connery Eilertson were charged with firing more than $100 billion in bogus liens against a 

variety of local public officials. Thomas faces 30 criminal counts, while Lis faces 47. The 

couple allegedly filed the liens while being foreclosed upon and evicted from their home in 

2009-2010. 

 Albany, New York, December 2011: Former IBM engineer and sovereign citizen activist 

Richard Ulloa was sentenced in December 2011 to five years in federal prison for filing $4 

trillion of bogus liens and other retaliatory and harassing filings against a variety of police, 

judges, government employees and private citizens. He and his followers even created their 

own “court” and issued bogus indictments against people and threatened to arrest them. 

Ulloa was also ordered to pay $63,401 in restitution to Ulster County and a local credit union. 

 Boerne, Texas, December 2011: Podiatrist and sovereign citizen Donald E. Robinson was 

indicted for allegedly filing a bogus lien on property owned by a Boerne police officer who had 

issued Robinson a citation during a 2009 traffic stop. The trial was scheduled for February 

2012, but Robinson did not wait for the trial in order to become active. When he received a 

copy of the indictment, he wrote “accept for value—return for fraud” on the document (a 

standard sovereign citizen pseudo-legal notion) and sent it back, which resulted in his arrest in 

June 2011 for tampering with a government record. In a two-hour-long trial held in 

December 2011, in which Robinson represented himself, the jury deliberated for a mere six 

minutes before convicting him. He was sentenced to 14 days in prison. Robinson had 

previously served four months in federal prison for filing false income tax returns. In 

February 2012, he pleaded guilty to fraudulent filing of a financial statement (the lien charge) 

and was sentenced to two years deferred adjudication probation and 100 hours of community 

service.

 Mineral Bluff, Georgia, October 2011: Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents arrested 

sovereign citizen Robert Eugene Stephens of Mineral Bluff, Georgia, on 12 criminal counts 

related to a series of bogus liens Stephens allegedly filed against a variety of state and local 

officials, including a county clerk, a local judge and her secretary, the county tax commissioner, 

the Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives, and others. Stephens allegedly called 

his liens “maritime liens.” 

 Pensacola, Florida, September 2011: Sovereign citizen Mark D. Leitner received a 30-month 

federal prison sentence in Pensacola, Florida, in September 2011 for filing bogus liens against a 

variety of federal prosecutors, agents, and other officials who were involved in a 2010 criminal 

case against Leitner for tax fraud. Leitner had filed bogus maritime liens against the property 

of the victims and claimed that each victim owed him almost $48.5 billion. Leitner was already 

serving a five-year sentence after being convicted in the 2010 case.

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 Highland, New York, August 2011: Sovereign citizen Jeffrey Burfeindt received a six-month 

prison sentence after pleading guilty to mail fraud for filing $736 billion in bogus liens against 

local police and government officials. The liens followed an incident in which he and another 

sovereign citizen, Ed Parenteau, were arrested for trespassing at a foreclosed-upon home. 

Parentau was previously convicted in May 2011 and sentenced to 21 months in prison. 

 Daytona Beach, Florida, June 2011: Sovereign citizen Patricio E. Sanchez filed a harassing lien 

for $350,000 against a local judge and two attorneys who had been involved in a foreclosure 

case against Sanchez. As a result, Sanchez was jailed for almost half a year for contempt of 

court. 

 Ogden, Utah, May 2011: Sovereign citizen Harvey Douglas Goff was indicted in federal court 

on 14 counts related to 77 bogus liens he allegedly filed against government entities and 

employees. He also allegedly mailed documents to state and local officials demanding payment 

of more than $53 trillion in “damages.” These incidents followed a March 2010 traffic stop in 

which he allegedly claimed “diplomatic immunity.” Goff was charged with obstruction of 

justice, impeding internal revenue laws, fictitious obligations, attempt to commit mail fraud, 

mailings in furtherance of a scheme and artifice to defraud.

 Birmingham, Alabama, October 2010: Jefferson County sheriff’s deputies arrested father and 

son sovereign citizens Donald Joe Barber and Donald Jason Barber on charges of intimidating 

a witness (Donald Joe) and possession of a forged instrument (Donald Jason, who also faced 

other apparently unrelated charges). The charges allegedly stemmed of “actions” taken by the 

Barbers against various police and government officials, including alleged threats as well as 

filing bogus liens, such as a $15 million lien against a local judge. 

 Colorado Springs, Colorado, September 2010: A federal judge sentenced Ronald Roy 

Hoodenpyle to a year in prison and two years of supervised release following a conviction for 

filing a bogus lien against an IRS employee for $1,160,000.

Other Harassing Attempts

In addition to bogus liens, sovereign citizens have developed a large repertoire of tactics to intimidate, 

threaten, and retaliate against people, ranging from involuntary bankruptcy filings to a wide variety of 

threats and extortions to bogus criminal complaints. Some recent examples of these tactics include:

 Polk County, Florida, October 2011: Polk County, Florida, authorities charged members of a 

local sovereign citizen group with simulating legal process. The most prominent member, 

Jacob Franz Dyck, 72, had achieved notoriety for filing sovereign deeds on houses he did not 

own and for allegedly setting up trusts that would ostensibly protect other people’s property 

from foreclosure or seizure. The charges stemmed from an incident involving Gary Chenot of 

Lakeland, one of Dyck’s followers, who had outstanding vehicle loans and a mortgage on his 

home. Chenot allegedly placed the vehicles and home into trusts that Dyck created. Chenot, 

Dyck, and another person, Kim Clayton Perry, allegedly began sending various pseudo-legal 

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documents, including some from a common law court (a common sovereign tactic in the 

1990s), apparently in order to get a bank to cease trying to reclaim one of the vehicles. In 

connection with this case, Chenot has been charged with grand theft, resisting an officer, and 

attempting to influence, intimidate or hinder law enforcement duties. Dyck has been charged 

with simulating the legal process. Perry and another person, Khamma Inthavong, have also 

been charged with simulated legal process.

 Talladega County, Alabama, January 2011: Two Alabama sovereign citizens were indicted on 

felony warrants from South Carolina for conspiracy and using sham legal process to intimidate 

or hinder a state or local official. The defendants, Gary Wayne Presley and Michael Donald 

Wilsey, were part of a sovereign citizen group called the Central Assemblies Union of the 

Several States of the Union of the States of the United States of America. Wilsey was also part 

of the Little Shell Pembina Band sovereign citizen group, a fictitious Native American tribe.

 Casper, Wyoming, October 2010: After sovereign citizen Ed Corrigan was found guilty of 

contempt in October 2010 for refusing to fix a variety of health and safety code violations on 

his property outside Casper, a sovereign citizen group calling itself a “Wyoming Grand Jury” 

allegedly met to re-hear the case, with sovereign citizen John Lee Cotton serving as the 

vigilante jury’s foreman. These “jurors” subsequently tried to file a presentment criminally 

charging four local government officials and judges for violating their oaths of office. “At this 

point,” Cotton told one reporter, “we have no strong arm of the law to back us up; but that 

day will come.”

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VI. Sovereign Citizen Tactics: Counterfeit Documents and Entities

Sovereign citizens are some of the most brazen counterfeiters around. They create fake license 

plates, drivers’ licenses, vehicle registrations, insurance cards, identification cards, and passports. 

Even more ambitiously, sovereign citizens have created fictitious financial instruments, such as 

“sight drafts” and “bills of exchange;” fictitious countries, colonies, and even Native American 

tribes; fictitious law enforcement agencies and more. They are constantly engaged in ways to create 

spurious forms of documentation and authority to help them avoid the reach of the actual 

government.

Fictitious Documents and Identification

One sovereign citizen fad that has been sweeping the country in recent years is the notion of 

“diplomatic immunity,” in which sovereigns declare themselves “diplomats” and their homes as 

“embassies.” Once they have done so, they will create or procure their own “Diplomatic Agent” 

identity cards and attempt to use them in various circumstances, such as traffic stops.

Some recent examples include:

 Indianapolis, Indiana, November 2011: Indianapolis police pulled over a sovereign citizen, 

Mark Osborn, who allegedly claimed that he did not have to have a driver’s license or 

register his motorcycle. Instead, Osborn showed officers an identification card that 

proclaimed Osborn a “diplomat.” Local reporters discovered that vehicles on his property 

had license plates that read “Free State Republic.” Following the traffic stop, Osborn 

demanded that Indiana pay him $1.6 million in gold or silver coins. In April 2012, Osborn 

was arrested again by Indianapolis police on a number of charges for allegedly still driving 

his SUV with his “Free State Republic” plates. 

 Austin, Texas, October 2011: Sovereign citizen Randall Kelton of Austin, Texas, received 

a one-year prison sentence and a $4,000 fine for impersonating a licensed investigations 

company officer in order to give evidence to a grand jury on behalf of Robert Fox, a 

sovereign citizen guru and leader of the so-called “House of Israel.” Kelton represented 

himself in the trial, which is common for sovereign citizens. 

 Norfolk, Virginia, September 2011: Roland Lee Morrison, aka Rashid Muhammad, a 

“Moorish” sovereign citizen, was convicted of two counts of fraudulent assertion of 

diplomatic immunity following a 2010 open container incident in which Morrison

proclaimed to police that he had “sovereign immunity” and presented a Moorish 

diplomatic identification card as his ID. In December 2011, he was sentenced to time 

served (more than a year in jail).

 Arab, Alabama, September 2011: Officers from the Arab, Alabama, Police Department 

arrested a sovereign citizen, Soni Dale Jackson, following a traffic stop. Jackson had

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allegedly been using a bogus identification card that claimed he was actually Soni Dale 

Carlee. Jackson also pulled out a common sovereign citizen document called a Public 

Servant’s Questionnaire and demanded the officer fill it out. According to a statement that 

Jackson made in an on-line forum in November 2011, Jackson told the officer he had no 

driver’s license but had a “Common Law Identification Card.” Jackson also claimed that 

he had made a “common law name change” to “Soni-Dale: Carlee.” 

 Bartlett, Tennessee, July 2011: Sovereign citizen Joseph Augustine Dattilo, Jr., of Indiana 

was arrested on several traffic charges related to driving with a home-made “United States” 

tag on his vehicle. In court, Dattilo contended that the court had no jurisdiction over him, 

that he was not required to have a car registration or driver’s license, and that he did not 

need car insurance because he had a “$10 million bond.” The judge fined him. 

 Front Royal, Virginia, July 2011: Front Royal police officers arrested Randy Linamen of 

Manassas following a traffic stop in which Linamen reportedly tried to give police a 

“Kingdom of Heaven” driver’s license instead of a legitimate one. Linamen also allegedly 

attempted to drive away during the traffic stop, but was prevented from doing so by police. 

He was charged with driving after revocation as a habitual offender. After police found a 

gun and ammo in the vehicle, he was also charged with being a felon in possession of a 

firearm. 

 Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, July 2011: The state police arrested Don Ralph Ickes, Jr., of 

Osterburg, Pennsylvania, on charges of resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, and various 

motor vehicle violations following a traffic stop because Ickes’ vehicle was allegedly 

displaying a bogus license plate issued by the Embassy of Heaven, an Oregon-based 

sovereign citizen group that has marketed bogus plates, drivers licenses and vehicle 

registrations to the sovereign citizen movement since the 1990s. Ickes allegedly refused to 

cooperate during the traffic stop and ended up being dragged from the vehicle by the state 

trooper.

 Vay, Idaho, June 2011: After police stopped a vehicle on I-90 for allegedly carrying a 

homemade license plate, they discovered that the driver, sovereign citizen Alexander 

Duncan Campbell, had a loaded 9mm pistol inside. Campbell was arrested and charged 

with carrying a weapon without a license and failure to purchase a driver’s license. He was 

also subsequently arrested for a failure to appear in court charge on another driver’s license 

incident in 2008 in another county.

 Staunton, Virginia, May 2011: Sovereign citizen Michael Creath Jones of Hanover, 

Virginia, was charged with five misdemeanors following a traffic stop in Staunton, Virginia. 

Jones had been pulled over by a Virginia state trooper for allegedly having a license plate 

that had been modified with phrases such as “private use.” During the stop, Jones 

allegedly refused to cooperate with the trooper. He was charged with resisting arrest, 

obstructing justice, driving without a license, operating an uninsured vehicle and driving 

with defective equipment. 

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Fictitious Financial Instruments

Because most sovereign citizens claim that paper money is unconstitutional, with gold and silver 

the only lawful forms of currency, they find it easy to rationalize creating their own forms of paper 

money, claiming they are at least as legitimate as Federal Reserve Notes. Sovereign citizens have 

engaged in this tactic since the early 1980s and it is still common today. Over the years, sovereign 

citizens have called such fictitious financial instruments by a variety of names, including certified 

money orders, comptroller’s warrants, bills of exchange, and sight drafts, among others. Currently 

popular are “bond promissory notes” or “bonded promissory notes.” Some recent incidents 

include:

 Kansas City, Missouri, February 2012: Sovereign citizen Danny Ray Hardin received a 10-

year federal prison sentence after being convicted of 21 counts of mail fraud and creating 

fictitious financial instruments for selling $100 million in bogus “promissory notes” as part 

of the “Private Bank of Danny Ray Hardin.” The notes were used by purchasers largely to 

pay off mortgages. At the time of his 2010 indictment, Harbin was already in prison. His 

probation for an earlier conviction had been revoked after he tried to arrest the lieutenant 

governor of Kansas for “violating the Constitution.”

 Hammond, Indiana, December 2011: Christopher Cannon, a sovereign citizen from Gary, 

Indiana, was convicted in federal court for using 181 counterfeit bills to buy large-screen 

televisions in Hobart in 2010. During his trial, Cannon claimed the government had no 

jurisdiction over him. The counterfeit currency was made from $5 bills that had been 

made to look like $50 bills. “Traditional” counterfeiting is rather rare in the sovereign 

citizen movement, which usually prefers to create entirely fictitious financial instruments 

with titles such as “bills of exchange” or “promissory notes.”

 Bakersfield, California, October 2011: A federal jury convicted Michael Ioane of Atwater, 

California, of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and of four counts of presenting fictitious 

documents to the U.S. Ioane was involved with Acacia Corporate Management and First 

Amendment Publishers, which marked bogus trusts to people as ways to avoid paying 

taxes. Ioane also created fictitious financial instruments called “Bills of Exchange” to send 

to the IRS to eliminate tax debt. A codefendant, Vincent Steven Booth, previously pleaded 

guilty in 2010.

 Kansas City, Missouri, June 2011: Husband and wife defendants Roderick Moore and 

Amber Catrece Moore of Kansas City were sentenced in federal court to, respectively, 13 

months in prison and three years of probation. Earlier in the year, Roderick Moore had 

pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and his wife to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. 

Roderick Moore had created a popular sovereign citizen fictitious financial instrument, a 

“Registered Bonded Promissory Note,” to pay off over $200,000 in debts. Amber Moore 

had filed bogus liens against several government officials or entities.

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Fictitious Law Enforcement Entities

Some of the most troubling counterfeit entities that sovereign citizens establish are fictitious law 

enforcement agencies. Sovereign citizens have declared themselves members of the Constitution 

Rangers, Republic of Texas Rangers, u. S. [sic] marshals, Civil Rights Task Force, and more. 

Sovereigns who purport to represent such agencies often have identification cards, badges, and 

sometimes even accoutrements such as police raid jackets. Using these props, sovereign citizens 

have attempted to get past courtroom security, to extricate themselves from encounters with 

police, and even to intimidate or “interrogate” others. The most popular current fictitious law 

enforcement agency is probably the “County Rangers,” which has appeared in a number of states 

(along with a variant, the so-called “American Rangers”).

Among recent examples of such items are the following:

 Spanaway, Washington, November 2011: Kenneth Leaming, a sovereign citizen from 

Spanaway, Washington, was charged with three charges related to filing a series of bogus 

liens in 2010 and 2011 against federal judges, prosecutors and law enforcement officers 

that totaled around $225 billion. Leaming, formerly a Thurston County deputy sheriff, is 

one of the leaders of the so-called “County Rangers,” a fictitious law enforcement agency 

created by the sovereign citizen movement that has been growing in popularity. In the 

past, Leaming has been involved with other sovereign citizen groups, including the Civil 

Rights Task Force (another fictitious law enforcement agency) and the Little Shell Pembina 

Band of North America, a fictitious Native American tribe. He had allegedly filed the liens 

in response to conflicts with authorities over a previous criminal case in which he was 

convicted.

 San Antonio, Texas, October 2011: Police arrested sovereign citizen Gregory Brent Davis 

in October 2011 in San Antonio on charges of impersonating a peace officer and 

unlawfully carrying a weapon for allegedly pretending to be a Texas Ranger. He had 

previously been arrested on the same charges in August 2011. In the earlier instance, he 

had allegedly been allowed into a rodeo without paying admission by claiming to be a 

“colonel of Rangers;” in the later instance, he allegedly entered a bank while wearing a 

badge and carrying a gun. Davis is part of the Republic of Texas, a large and long-running 

Texas-based sovereign citizen group, which has had a history of adherents posing as 

fictitious Texas Rangers.

 Kerrville, Texas, October 2010: A local judge sentenced two sovereign citizens, father and 

son, for impersonating police officers. Both persons, Charles Tiller III and Charles Tiller 

IV, are members of the so-called Republic of Texas, a large sovereign citizen group based 

in that state. Charles Tiller III was charged earlier in the year with a felony count of 

impersonating a public servant after he had allegedly identified himself as a constable while 

trying to order a badge. He received a sentence of three years of probation and a $2,000 

fine. His son, Charles Tiller IV, was charged with falsely identifying himself as a peace 

officer for allegedly putting a sign on his vehicle identifying it with a star and the phrase 

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“Bexar County Sheriff’s Department.” He pleaded no contest and was sentenced to two 

years’ probation and an $800 fine. Kerrville has historically been a hotspot in Texas for the 

sovereign citizen movement. 

 Eureka, Montana, June 2010: U.S. customs officials in Montana ordered a Canadian 

sovereign citizen living in the United States to leave the country after he pleaded guilty to

charges of domestic abuse. The man, Donald Roy Fehr, was also part of a sovereign citizen 

group that dubbed itself the “County Rangers.” Fehr had allegedly made threatening 

telephone calls to a local justice of the peace and had begun to show up at local 

government meetings wearing a uniform sporting a badge, and carrying a pistol.

Fictitious Nations, Quasi-Nations and Tribes

Members of the sovereign citizen movement, in order to escape the jurisdiction of a government 

they believe is illegal, frequently try to create their own fictitious governmental or quasigovernmental entities, largely in an attempt to avoid authority. For example, in the 1990s, a group 

of sovereign citizens invented a fictitious British colony, the “British West Indies,” and 

manufactured and sold realistic looking license plates that purported to come from this colony.

This tactic continued in the 2000s, surging along with the rest of the sovereign citizen movement 

beginning in 2009. To give just one example from among many, in Harrison, New York, in May 

2011, Harrison police officers arrested sovereign citizen Jason R. Mack for second-degree criminal 

impersonation for allegedly providing “Moorish” identification documents, including an 

“Indigenous Government ID – Tax Exempt” that identified Mack as an “aboriginal MINISTER 

Cherokee Choctaw Native.” Another card claimed that its bearer was exempt from taxation 

because he was a “minister.”

In the 21st century, such tactics have not abated. Notable examples of fictitious tribes include:

 Little Shell Pembina Band of North America. Perhaps the most “successful” such attempt 

was the creation in 2003 of a fictitious Native American tribe dubbed the Little Shell 

Pembina Band of North America, which quickly spread across the United States. In 2010, 

some of its original members have dropped out, but the concept itself has remained very 

popular, and Little Shell related incidents regularly pop up, many of them involving frauds 

or scams of various kinds (see frauds and scams section). To give one recent example, two 

Little Shell members, Gregory Allen Davis and Michael Howard Reed of North Dakota, 

were sentenced in February 2011 for filing $3.4 million in bogus liens against a federal 

judge and federal prosecutors in 2009. Reed received a nine year sentence, Korman a 

sentence of three years and five months. They were arrested after Reed threatened a judge 

who refused to dismiss federal drug charges against two other Little Shell members and 

Davis filed a bogus lien against another judge and against an acting U.S. Attorney for not 

dismissing a firearms charge against Reed. They were subsequently convicted of 

conspiring to file and filing false liens against federal officials; Reed was also convicted of 

obstruction of justice. 

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“Little Shell” adherents now use several different variations of the original name of the 

group. However, they are unrelated to the similarly-named Montana-based Little Shell 

Tribe, which is not a sovereign citizen group.

 Washitaw Nation/Empire. This sovereign citizen group emerged in Louisiana and Texas 

in the mid-1990s. It is one of several sovereign citizen groups that are essentially Moorish 

in nature but also claim “native” status. Washitaw members claim they are descendants of 

the ancient mound-builders of the Mississippi Valley. Members have created license plates, 

diplomatic identification cards and similar fictitious sovereign citizen documents. Although 

in the 1990s the Washitaw was essentially a single group, by the end of that decade it had 

become more of a concept and today there are a number of completely independent 

“Washitaw” sovereign citizen groups across the country. In April 2010, a Washitaw 

member in Greensboro, North Carolina, Tornello Fontaine Pierce El-Bey, sued the city for 

$7 million, claiming that a police officer had violated his rights during a March 2010 traffic 

stop. When stopped, El-Bey told the officer he was not a U.S. citizen and tried to present a 

diplomatic identification card instead of a drivers’ license. El-Bey also claimed a copyright 

violation for his name appearing on the ticket the officer issued.

 United Nations of Turtle Island (UNOTI). UNOTI is based primarily in east Tennessee, 

western North Carolina, and northern Georgia, although “members” have been found as 

far away as California. UNOTI has been creating bogus license plates, driver’s licenses and 

similar documents since around 2003. 

 Sovran Nations Embassies of Mother Earth (also known as Sovran Unity Nations). 

Sovran is a group that started up recently in Montreal in Canada, but has now spread to a 

number of places in Canada and the United States, with contact points in California, 

Arkansas, Montana, and Hawaii. One of their Montana contact points is in the tiny town 

of Roundup, famous in 1995-1996 for being one of two towns housing the Montana 

Freemen.

 Wampanoag Nation, Tribe of Grayhead, Wolf Band. This small group emerged in the

2000s in eastern Utah (unrelated to the legitimate Mashpee Wampanoag Nation in 

Massachusetts), issuing driver’s licenses and filing lawsuits against a variety of public 

officials and law enforcement officers, including a $250 million lien against a Uintah 

County prosecutor. In May 2008, a federal judge ordered a $63,000 civil judgment against 

four of its organizers, ordering them to stop their “complete sham.”

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VII. Sovereign Citizen Tactics: Frauds and Scams

For decades, the sovereign citizen movement has been home to hundreds of con artists and 

tricksters who use the language and pseudo-legal theories of the movement to beguile people into 

giving them their money. It is not uncommon for successful sovereign con artists to get more than 

a million dollars out of their schemes; several of the largest sovereign-involved scams have raked 

in over a hundred million dollars.

Among the most common type of sovereign scams are pyramid schemes, other investment 

schemes, bogus trust scams, real estate fraud, and various types of tax frauds. However, sovereign 

citizens have engaged in more esoteric scams as well, ranging from immigration fraud to 

malpractice insurance fraud. Some sovereign scam artists will target anybody, while others actually 

primarily target adherents of the sovereign citizen movement themselves, in a form of affinity 

fraud.

Any sort of debt can also potentially be fodder for a sovereign citizen scheme: student loans, car 

loans, credit card debts, etc. In March 2010, for example, eight operators (from Oregon, 

Washington, New York and Florida) of a sovereign citizen and tax protest group called Pinnacle 

Quest International were convicted of tax fraud, wire fraud and money laundering charges. 

Among their various enterprises was Financial Solutions, operated by Arthur Merino of Renton,

Washington, which charged victims thousands of dollars to “eliminate” their credit card debt.

Many victims were forced into bankruptcy after discovering the scheme did not work.

Some recent examples of sovereign citizen scams include:

 Erie, Pennsylvania, July 2012: A federal judge in Erie, Pennsylvania, sentenced tax 

protester, sovereign citizen, and Erie County Councilman Ebert G. Beeman to 12 months 

and one day in prison following his conviction on eight counts of Social Security fraud. 

Beeman allegedly used a fake name to fraudulently obtain a Social Security number, then 

used it to apply for jobs, credit cards, and a car loan. Beeman has had other legal 

problems as well, including a long-running battle with the IRS for $2.1 million in unpaid 

income taxes, penalties, and interest. In that case, Beeman unsuccessfully represented 

himself, using sovereign citizen pseudo-legal arguments. In October 2011, FBI agents 

seized property owned by Beeman to help repay the debt. In November, Beeman was 

found guilty of violating a federal court order directing him to vacate the properties seized 

by the IRS; federal authorities had allegedly found him hiding in the bathroom of one of 

the properties. Beeman has also been cited at least eight times for driving without a 

license. He mailed two such citations to a local judge with the words “refuse for cause” 

written on them—a common sovereign citizen tactic. 

 Ventura County, California, March 2012: Ventura County sheriff’s deputies arrested 

Sharon Palmer, James Cecil Stewart, and Eugenie Victoria Bloch on charges of conspiracy 

to commit a crime, money laundering, grand theft, and failure to file an income tax return. 

James Stewart was a sovereign citizen who signed his name with sovereign punctuation as 

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“James-Cecil: Stewart.” In a February 2012 document purporting to be a signed 

“statement under oath” by Stewart, he claimed that the state of California had no 

jurisdiction over him. The defendants ran businesses such as Healthy Family Farms and 

the Rawesome Food Club, which allegedly illegally produced and sold unpasteurized or 

“raw” milk (for which they were charged in August 2011). Prosecutors charged that they 

stole more than $1.5 million from investors in the business.

 Las Vegas, Nevada, October 2011: Samuel Davis, a prominent sovereign citizen “guru,” 

received a federal prison sentence of 57 months in Las Vegas, Nevada, for his role in a 

$1.3 million money laundering scheme. He was also ordered to serve three years of 

supervised release and to pay almost $100,000 in restitution. Davis pleaded guilty in 

March 2011. A co-defendant, Shawn Talbot Rice, remained a fugitive for months until his 

capture in December 2011 following a brief standoff.

 Maui, Hawaii, May 2011: Five sovereign citizens were indicted by a federal grand jury for 

their involvement in a tax and mortgage fraud scheme. The defendants, Mahealani 

Ventura-Oliver, John D. Oliver, Pilialoha K. Teves, Leatrice Lehua Hoy, and Peter Hoy, 

were charged with 25 counts of fraud, money-laundering and tax-related charges. Using 

several groups, they had allegedly collected nearly $500,000 in fees from 2008-2010 for a 

“debt assistance program” that they claimed could eliminate mortgage, credit card, and 

other debts. They had also allegedly prepared false income tax filings and issued fictitious 

financial instruments such as bonds, promissory notes, and money orders. The sovereign 

citizen movement has long been active in Hawaii, where it is often associated with 

segments of the native Hawaiian independence movement.

 Indianapolis, Indiana, August 2010: An Indianapolis jury found sovereign citizen Walter 

Eugene Lunsford guilty of multiple counts of fraud and theft for attempting to use Federal 

Reserve routing numbers in a scheme to get free cars from an Indianapolis car dealership 

for himself and his friends. Lunsford’s scam was initially successful when he tried it, but 

failed when all of his friends showed up at the car dealership on the same day to repeat his 

tactic, one of them even allegedly offering to “buy” a car for one of the employees of the 

dealership. He received a two year sentence of home detention after agreeing to help 

federal and state investigators.

Mortgage/Foreclosure Schemes

Of the many sovereign schemes active today, some of the most troubling are schemes purporting 

to allow victims to save their homes or property from foreclosure. They are especially troubling 

because they target desperate property owners and can potentially take their last dime and at the

same time insure that they will lose their property. None of their schemes actually have the ability 

to save property from foreclosure.

Such schemes date back to the serious recession and farm crisis of the early to mid-1980s, and 

regularly reappear. From 2003-2006 a major wave of sovereign citizen mortgage scams swept the 

United States, with more than a half dozen major groups (some operating as multi-level marketing 

schemes so that they had hundreds of “associates”) offering what they dubbed “mortgage 

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elimination.” Victims would pay thousands of dollars to have their mortgages “eliminated” within 

four to six months, only the “elimination” would never actually occur. Although consumer alerts 

from a variety of federal and state sources helped to stem this tide of scams, only a relatively few

perpetrators were ever prosecuted. One group that was investigated and successfully prosecuted 

was the California-based Dorean Group, whose leaders, Kurt Johnson and Dale Scott Heineman, 

were convicted of 35 counts of mail fraud in 2008 and sentenced to 25 and nearly 22 years in 

prison, respectively.

Since the foreclosure crisis broke in late 2008, a new wave of mortgage-related sovereign citizen 

schemes has appeared, as sovereign citizen gurus around the country have leapt to take advantage 

of a large pool of people newly worried about saving their homes from seizure. Many, perhaps 

most, sovereign citizen gurus have rushed to add mortgage-related material to their seminars. 

“Our plan is really simple,” explains the Web site of one such entity, the Debt Free Sovereign 

Trust, operating in Washington state and British Columbia. “To eliminate your debts, we simply 

assume your debts....All debts arising from privately created money or ‘digitally created’ money 

can be eliminated.” The cost? Only $1,000 for “expenses.”

A mortgage scheme in Hawaii charged considerably more. In late 2008, the FBI began 

investigating a mortgage elimination ring that charged victims between $2,500 and $10,000 to 

attend seminar and meetings where people were given special $1 million “Royal Hawaiian 

Treasury Bonds” that they could allegedly use to pay off their mortgages (a sovereign citizen tactic 

dating back to the 1980s), though they would have to make payments to the mortgage elimination 

ring for a while. Of course, the bonds turned out to be worthless.

Many gurus do not themselves offer to eliminate people’s mortgages or save their homes, but 

rather market schemes or instructions as to how people can do it on their own. The gurus make 

less money, taking in seminar and materials fees and sometimes perhaps acting as “consultants,” 

but probably believe they face less risk of criminal prosecution.

Sovereign citizens have come up with a variety of pseudo-legal ways to attempt to “protect” their 

property. One such tactic, which dates back to the early 1980s, is attempting to use gold or silver 

coins to purchase properties or interfere with their resale. The theory behind such attempts rests 

on the sovereign citizen belief that paper money holds no value and only gold or silver actually is 

valid money. For example, in 2008, three Pennsylvania sovereign citizens—Victor Balleta of 

Allentown, Michael Proetta of Whitehall Township, and Michael Reis of Bethlehem—attempted 

to purchase foreclosed property with gold and silver coins. When outbid, they challenged the bids. 

Proetta explained that the other bidders “made an unlawful money bid in credit in opposition to 

my lawful money bid. I was the only lawful bidder and therefore the only bidder.” The men might 

not have been trying to obtain the properties for themselves but trying to hinder the banks’ ability 

to re-sell the properties by challenging their ownership (as actually happened; it was not until 2010 

that their suit was dismissed).

Another ancient sovereign tactic given new life in recent years is the notion of putting a lien on 

one’s own property because of the “sweat equity” an owner has put into it. The theory is that no 

other creditor can take the property until the owner’s lien has been satisfied. As one Michiganbased Moorish sovereign citizen group, the Moorish Republic Trust, puts it, “Under common law, 

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life experience has value. The idea is that you have lived, worked, played, laughed, cried, in other 

words, you have put yourself into the property, and the property owes you as a result.” The 

Moorish Republic Trust suggests that the figure of $3,000 per year of ownership is an 

“uncontestable” figure; they generously offer to help people, presumably for a fee, prepare such 

“common law liens.” However, the courts have ruled that such self-targeted liens are illegitimate.

Most common has been the resuscitation of the notion of the “land patent.” Sovereign citizens 

take historical and legal references to an old legal concept (land patents are how the federal 

government historically transferred title of public lands to private ownership) and imbue it with 

the magical quality of being able to protect one’s property from creditors and foreclosure. Along 

with the related concept of “allodial titles,” the “land patent” concept dates at least as far back as 

the early 1980s in the sovereign citizen movement—and has been struck down by the courts many 

times. In recent years it has seen new life, as sovereign citizens across the country have begun 

promoting the notion and offering instructions—for a price.

“The mortgage industry doesn’t want anyone to know about land patents,” claims one Web site 

promoting the tactic. According to these promoters, “a land patent claim has never successfully 

[been] challenged in court.” How are more people are not aware of land patents? Because “state 

and local authorities are in collusion to ensure that this information never reaches the public.”

Many sovereign citizens have rushed to become land patent promoters, including people one 

might not ordinarily associate with such schemes. One example is Rita Granberry, a model who 

helped parley stints on the Howard Stern radio show into a career as a nude model. Of AfroItalian descent, Granberry recently became involved with the Moorish movement, changed her 

last name to Granberry-El, and even delivered presentations (one of which was uploaded to 

YouTube) promoting the notion of land patents.

Granberry-El has a lot of company. In fact, not only are sovereign citizens heavily involved in 

promoting the notion of land patents, but the idea has now slipped the bounds of the movement 

and some non-sovereign con artists have also recently picked up on the scheme.

Some sovereign citizens have been taking advantage of the foreclosure crisis in a very different 

way: by appropriating for themselves homes in foreclosure. Typically, sovereign citizens would 

identify foreclosed-upon homes whose occupants had been evicted but which had not yet been 

resold by the bank. They would then file bogus deeds, change the locks, and move in. The more 

ambitious would actually become de facto landlords by renting out the seized properties to others. 

Sovereign citizen “squatting” incidents have occurred in every region of the country.

Some recent sovereign citizen mortgage scam and “squatting” incidents include:

 Memphis, Tennessee, March 2012: A federal grand jury indicted sovereign citizen Devitoe 

Farmer on three counts of theft of government property after Farmer allegedly used bogus 

quit-claim deeds in an attempt to take possession of foreclosed houses from government 

agencies or government-backed housing lenders. According to news reports, Farmer 

claimed that since 1933, federal law has prevented government agencies and banks from 

possessing property. He may also face state charges.

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 Appleton, Wisconsin, March 2012: Erik Hudson (aka Kabir Bey) of Appleton, Wisconsin, 

was convicted of criminal property slander after using a bogus warranty deed to seize a 

foreclosed-on home and then renting it out—a popular sovereign citizen tactic in recent 

years. Hudson, a member of the Moorish offshoot of the sovereign citizen movement, 

told the judge, “I’m not in a state of mind of Wisconsin, I’m in a state of mind of Moorish 

America.”

 DeKalb County, Georgia, October 2011: A DeKalb County grand jury indicted Susan 

Weidman, Ian Greye, Giulio Greye, and Mathew Lowery on charges related to a 

“squatting” scheme, in which the defendants allegedly seized and occupied vacant 

foreclosed-upon houses in four different Georgia counties. Weidman, the alleged 

ringleader, was indicted on state racketeering charges. The suspects, at least some of 

them self-declared sovereign citizens, have decided to represent themselves in court.

 Charlotte, North Carolina, October 2011: Mecklenburg County authorities reported a 

rash of filings—more than 200—from Moorish sovereign citizens who allegedly claimed 

that their group membership gave them the right to claim vacant homes for their own. In 

one reported case, two individuals entered a dwelling and claimed that they now had a 

deed for the house. Several people have been arrested in connection with some of these 

incidents, including Kenneth William Lewis, charged with obtaining property by false 

pretenses, possessing stolen goods, breaking and entering and trespassing; and Asaru 

Aaalim Ali, charged with breaking and entering and trespassing.

 Tucson, Arizona, September 2011: A federal grand jury in Tucson indicted two sovereign 

citizens, Marshall Home and Margaret Elizabeth Broderick, for an alleged mortgage fraud 

scheme. They were charged with 10 counts of mail fraud, bankruptcy fraud, and wire 

fraud. Home and Broderick, associated with the ‘Individual Rights Party’ and the 

‘Mortgage Rescue Service,’ allegedly charged people $500 to “help” people facing 

foreclosure. However, their rescue services reportedly consisted of bogus sovereign 

citizen filings, such as an involuntary petition of bankruptcy against the U.S. government. 

They also allegedly registered as trade names the formal names of government-sponsored 

loan organizations Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, then used those names to file fraudulent 

deeds on property owned by those organizations and transfer them to the Independent 

Rights Party (following which, they would allegedly rent out the properties).

 Chicago, Illinois, August 2011: Cook County officials discovered that a Moorish sovereign 

citizen or sovereign citizen group allegedly filed bogus deeds on more than 30 Chicagoarea homes and properties with an estimated worth of more than $10 million. Many of 

the deeds listed the Moorish Science Temple of America and/or Noble Drew Ali (the 

group’s long-dead founder) as the owner. However, MSTA officials have claimed to have 

had nothing to do with the deeds and that the MSTA itself was being victimized by this. 

 Mullica Township, New Jersey, July 2011: Police in Mullica Township, New Jersey, 

arrested Moorish sovereign citizen Jolanda S. Bordley-Jackson-El for allegedly stealing a 

foreclosed home worth $300,000. As has been typical in such cases, Bordley-Jackson-El 

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allegedly filed a bogus deed to the house, then changed the locks and utilities. She was 

charged with theft by deception and forgery.

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VIII. Sovereign Citizen Tactics: Threats, Takeovers and Violence

Sovereign citizens engage in harassing tactics such as bogus liens, as well as a variety of scams and 

frauds, but as the West Memphis shootout involving Jerry and Joseph Kane tragically 

demonstrated, they are willing to resort to violence as well.

Indeed, threats and ultimatums, attempted “citizens arrests” and takeovers of government or 

other buildings, and acts of violence, especially during traffic stops and residence visits, are 

common among the sovereign citizen movement, making them a serious officer safety threat as 

well as a potential threat to public officials and private citizens in the communities in which they 

operate.

In addition to the West Memphis shootout, other recent incidents include:

 Valparaiso, Indiana, July 2012: A Michigan truck driver and sovereign citizen, Martin J. 

Jonassen, 55, was convicted of kidnapping and obstruction of justice in September 2011 

for allegedly kidnapping his 21-year old daughter in September 2011 from her Missouri 

home in order to take her to his home in Michigan. According to court documents, his 

daughter had never been to school and had only read books about religion, history and the 

government that had been approved by her father. The woman escaped while they were 

travelling through Portage, Indiana. Jonassen recaptured her, but not before residents saw 

her running naked through the streets and reported the incident to police. Jonassen was 

arrested when police found the two together. Jonassen has been charged with federal 

kidnapping charges, as well as local charges of felony confinement. Following his arrest, 

he filed a petition with the federal and local courts, stating that they had not proven they 

had any jurisdiction over him as a sovereign citizen of Michigan. He was also 

subsequently charged with two counts of obstruction of justice for trying to get his 

daughter to change her testimony. At a court hearing, he pleaded not guilty “under 

duress” and claimed that he was “a man of the land, born of the land.” He represented 

himself during trial.

 Fairbanks, Alaska, June 2012: Alaska militia leader and sovereign citizen Schaeffer Cox 

and two other defendants, Coleman Barney and Lonnie Vernon, were convicted of a 

variety of charges related to a plot to kill state and federal officials. Cox, the ringleader, 

was convicted of 9 of the 11 charges against him, including conspiracy to murder, 

solicitation to murder and seven weapons charges. The three defendants, and two others, 

all belonging to either a local militia group, sovereign citizen group, or others, were 

arrested in Fairbanks, Alaska, in March 2011, on state and federal weapons and other 

charges related to an alleged plot to kill Alaska state troopers and other state and federal 

officials. 

 Colleyville, Texas, February 2012: A Tarrant County jury sentenced sovereign citizen 

James M. Tesi of Hurst, Texas, to 35 years in prison after convicting him of aggravated 

assault on a public servant with a deadly weapon. Tesi was wounded in July 2011 during a 

shootout with police in the town of Colleyville, near Fort Worth. Prior to the shooting, 

Tesi, who signs his name “James-Michael: Tesi” and calls himself a “true natural living 

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being,” had been involved with several previous incidents with police in Arlington and 

Colleyville. In February 2010, Arlington police stopped Tesi and cited him for failure to 

wear a seatbelt. Tesi allegedly refused to pay the fine, claiming that the police and court 

had no jurisdiction over him. Because of the nonpayment, an arrest warrant was issued. 

The following December, Colleyville police stopped him for speeding, then arrested him 

because of the Arlington warrant. After alleged continued non-cooperation, Colleyville 

itself eventually issued an arrest warrant for Tesi. In July 2011, a Colleyville police officer 

spotted Tesi’s car. When Tesi allegedly refused to pull over, the officer followed Tesi 

home. After getting out of his vehicle, Tesi allegedly fired at the officer, who returned fire 

and wounded Tesi in the face and foot. 

 Valencia, California, February 2012: Self-declared sovereign citizen Vahe Ohanian was 

arrested after entering a sheriff’s station in Santa Clarita Valley and allegedly threatening 

deputies there, telling them he would return with a shotgun. According to police, in 

postings on a social networking site Ohanian also threatened to hurt one of the officers. 

 Daytona Beach, Florida, February 2012: Self-declared sovereign citizen Laurine Sue 

Arnold was convicted of kidnapping her grandson in 2011 from the home of her sister, 

who was acting as a temporary guardian. The child was eventually found in a Hare 

Krishna temple in another town. Arnold, who was out on bail following her arrest, did 

not show up for the final days of her trial, and a warrant has been issued for her arrest. 

 Denver, Colorado, February 2012: Sovereign citizen Matthew O’Neill, of Kremmling, 

Colorado, pleaded guilty to providing false information related to a terrorism offense after 

being arrested for sending a package with white powder to the Colorado Department of 

Revenue. The powder, which caused the evacuation of the building, turned out to be 

baking soda. 

 Phoenix, Arizona, January 2012: Police arrested Michael Crane in connection with the 

murder/robbery of an elderly Paradise Valley couple in January; Crane is also the prime 

suspect in another robbery/murder that occurred soon after. In his initial court 

appearance, Crane attempted to use sovereign citizen arguments, including saying that he 

wanted to “reserve my right to Uniform Commercial Code 1-207 and Uniform 

Commercial Code 1-103.” 

 Glengary, West Virginia, January 2012: Police investigating a mobile home fire in 

Glengary, West Virginia, discovered a gruesome scene: the burned bodies of David 

Hutzler and his 9-year-old son James. Even more disturbing was their discovery that both 

had been shot in the head, apparently as part of a murder-suicide. According to the 

Southern Poverty Law Center, Hutzler had been an active member in the prominent 

sovereign citizen group Republic for the united [sic]States of America and a later 

breakaway group called the Vandalia Solution.

 Sumter County, Florida, January 2012: Sovereign citizen Brody Whitaker, who once 

referred to himself as the “Grandson of God,” received a sentence of life in prison after 

being found guilty of two counts of attempted murder of a Florida state trooper. 

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Whitaker engaged state police in a high-speed chase and shootout in 2010 before escaping 

to Connecticut, where he was eventually caught. As is common for sovereign citizen 

defendants, Whitaker acted as his own attorney.

 Albuquerque, New Mexico, January 2012: Albuquerque police fatally shot sovereign 

citizen Mark Macoldowna of Ruidoso, New Mexico, during a close-range shootout that 

occurred when they responded to the robbery of a Catholic church. Two alleged 

accomplices, who do not appear to have been sovereign citizens, were arrested and 

charged with conspiracy to commit armed robbery and conspiracy to commit kidnapping. 

 Seattle, Washington, December 2011: Redmond resident and sovereign citizen David 

Myrland, 53, was sentenced to three years in federal prison following his conviction on 

threat charges. Following a traffic stop in Kirkland, Washington, in which his car was 

impounded, Myrland issued a series of threatening “citizens’ arrest warrants” to the mayor 

of Kirkland and others. In a letter to the mayor, Myrland wrote that she should prepare 

for a visit from “50 armed men and women” would come to arrest her and that she should 

not resist. Charges were filed against him in September 2010. Other sovereign citizens 

from around the country also sent threatening letters related to Myrland’s case, including 

one from Texas that informed a King County prosecutor that it was “lawful for a private 

citizen to use deadly force in attempting to apprehend a fleeing felon.” Myrland is 

connected to several prominent sovereign citizen groups in the Pacific Northwest. 

 Lakota, North Dakota, November 2011: Sovereign citizen Rodney Brossart and four of 

his adult children, Alex, Thomas, Jacob, and Abby, were arrested following the end of a 

months-long standoff near Lakota, North Dakota. The standoff began after local deputies 

arrived at the 3500-acre Brossart ranch to serve a search warrant regarding another 

rancher’s cattle allegedly on their property. Brossart allegedly refused to return the cattle 

and told deputies that if they came on his property they wouldn’t be coming back. He 

and his daughter were arrested for an alleged physical confrontation; later that evening, 

when officers returned to the property, the three sons allegedly confronted them with 

rifles and threatened the officers. They were arrested the next morning, but the family 

refused to show up for a hearing on August 26, holing up on their property instead. 

Rodney Brossart has been charged with one count of terrorizing, one count of theft of 

property, one count of criminal mischief, one count of failure to comply with estray order, 

and one count of preventing arrest. Months of negotiation followed their failure to 

appear, without success, but authorities eventually arrested them while avoiding further 

violence. The three brothers were charged with terrorizing and bail jumping; the sister 

with simple assault and bail-jumping charges, as well as a misdemeanor harassment charge. 

Susan Brossart was charged with lying to authorities who asked her about guns on the 

property.

 Oregon, October 2011: A so-called “de jure Grand Jury,” a self-proclaimed sovereign 

citizen pseudolegal entity, sent “indictments” to all district attorneys in Oregon. The 

alleged charges included treason, kidnapping, and slave trafficking. The documents 

moreover called on “provost marshals” to arrest the officials and suggested that in some 

cases the death penalty might be appropriate. 

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 Page, Arizona, June 2011: Sovereign citizen William Foust of Page, Arizona, was shot to 

death by a Page police officer after a physical confrontation. The officer was responding 

to a domestic violence call at a business owned by Foust. By the time the officer arrived 

at the business, Foust had left, but he returned as the officer was talking to the woman 

who had made the 911 call. According to police, Foust was confrontational. When the 

officer and Foust left the building, their encounter became physical and Foust allegedly 

attempted to grab the officer’s Taser. The officer shot Foust, mortally wounding him. 

The officer had received minor injuries. Foust was an active sovereign citizen and “Chief 

Justice” for Arizona for the sovereign citizen group Republic for the united States of 

America. He had made many sovereign citizen filings in the past and had occasionally 

gotten in minor legal troubles related to his sovereign citizen actions.

 Ensley, Florida, June 2011: Sovereign citizen Larry Wayne Kelly was arrested in June 2011 

for shooting at a seafood market with an AK-47 in Ensley, Florida. According to police,

Kelly became angry with the seafood store after employees informed him that it had no 

crawfish for sale. Kelly called them 11 times then went to the store in his truck, where he 

allegedly opened fire at the front of the store with an AK-47. He then led police on a car 

chase before eventually crashing his car, following which he was taken into custody. 

Kelly’s vehicle reportedly had a homemade license plate on it at the time and he told 

officers after being arrested that he was a sovereign citizen and did not have to obey them. 

In the past, he had filed a number of pseudo-legal sovereign citizen documents. 

 Charlotte County, Florida, April 2011: Authorities arrested two sovereign citizens, Robert 

Chapman and John Ridge Emery III, for allegedly giving a judge an envelope marked 

“bio-hazard” containing a mysterious substance. The incident caused the entire building 

to have to be evacuated. According to police, Chapman drove Emery to the Charlotte 

County Justice Center and gave him an envelope containing a suspected chemical agent to 

give to the judge overseeing a hearing for Emery on traffic-related offenses. Both men 

were charged with the manufacture, possession, delivery, or attempted use or threatened 

use of a weapon of mass destruction. An analysis of the substance in the envelope marked 

“biohazard” revealed that it was not, in fact, hazardous. In December 2011, Chapman 

filed a pro se motion demanding that his case be dismissed and that the state pay him $115 

million in “restitution,” claiming in the motion that “if you do not file this motion, you are 

a traitor to the basis this country was established on.” 

 

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3

©2012 Anti-Defamation League

605 Third Avenue

New York, NY 10158-3560

www.adl.org

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 74 of 149
ATTACHMENT G 

United States v. Winston Shrout 

3:15-cr-00438-JO 

YouTube pages of 

The GoldFish Report 

Nos. 263 and 273 (with Comments) 

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 75 of 149












ATTACHMENT H 

United States v. Winston Shrout 

3:15-cr-00438-JO 

Tad’s Talkshoe – Youhavetheright.com 

Audio Podcast Transcript 

Recorded March 29, 2016 

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 88 of 149
DATE: March 29, 2016

SUBJECT: This is a podcast from March 29, 2016 with a conversation between Tad 

(podcast moderator) and a guest, Winston Shrout, with caller Q&A. 

Podcast (Tad): Good evening everybody. It's Tuesday, March 29, 2016 and we have a 

very special call tonight with a very special guest; but before we get to 

that, I want you guys, when our guest, Winston Shrout, has finished 

speaking tonight, we are about to wrap up the call, stick around for a little 

bit. I got a brief little announcement for ya. So, if you'd do that, we would 

appreciate it. So Winston, hey, welcome to the call. How ya doin'. 

Winston Shrout: Good, just like usual.

Podcast (Tad): (laughter) Well, we're glad to hear your voice. Apparently, you've made 

the news recently. Apparently, there are stories about some indictments 

and things going around saying that you were arrested and everything, so 

maybe we start off with that and you tell us a little bit about, maybe 

clearing up the facts and telling us what's going on and how you plan to 

come out of this shining. 

Winston Shrout: Well, I don't think I wanna tell the full story yet.

Podcast (Tad): Okay.

Winston Shrout: There are some things in the background that I've been working on and I 

had to basically encourage and attack - a lot of your listeners don't know 

my history, but I have worked in the international, with the office of 

international treasury control, so uh, based on that, I have international 

immunity under treaty with the United Nations. It was the key thing to, uh, 

somewhat instigate or whatever, I practically had to beg for it; but in any 

Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment H, Page 1 of 56

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 89 of 149
event, there were certain background things that I needed to accomplish 

and I needed to get it done in a big hurry. One of um that probably some 

of your listeners might know, others might not know, but the IRS itself 

came out [unintelligible] at the Delaware Corporation back in 1934-35 and 

they were immediately purchased by an attorney firm, and then they 

disincorporated the Delaware Corporation. Eventually what happened, 

the IRS ended up in a holding company known as Northern Trust 

Company...

Podcast (Tad): Yeah?

Winston Shrout: ...uh, Northern Trust Company also owns the Bar Association. A lot of 

times you hear people say that the IRS and the Bar is the same entity and 

basically, for all intents and purposes, it is; so in any event, what I needed 

to do was deal with Northern Trust. I had to have some reason to go after 

them, and so the DOJ provided me that opportunity.

Podcast (Tad): Okay.

Winston Shrout: There are certain - hopefully your audience understands that we are in for 

major change in government here, actually, the government has already 

changed, they just haven't announced it. But anyway, I was kinda the 

gun to get all that accomplished before the end of the fiscal year, so there 

were certain administrative processes that I did which would include the 

commercial lean, and it had to be turned over to certain parties. I 

accomplished that as of December 28, prior to the actual, I'll say, 

takeover by this new interim government. The indictments themselves - 

first off, you can bring all the indictments you want, but you'll have to 

Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment H, Page 2 of 56

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 90 of 149
make good on them and they can't make good on them. The most recent 

thing I've done or I had done is I've gotten them into a contract using 

what's known as plea in bar. Some of your listeners might understand 

plea in bar. Anyway, so last Friday, I put in the plea in bar which included 

a written bill of particulars, which if they default on, and they will, would 

put them into a no-win situation; and so, I have a hearing on - have an 

arraignment on the superseding indictment coming up on Thursday, so I 

put the plea in bar - I went and filed the plea in bar on Friday, along with 

the demand for a written bill of particulars. I then go in with regulation Z, 

three days, truth in lending, blah, blah, blah, T plus 72 hours. Come 

Thursday mornin, I will have locked them into a contract. So, 

[unintelligible] first off, the way things are moving on the planet with the 

changes and so forth, I think this whole thing, the information I'm getting 

from, how shall I say, the star people or the people on the other side, is 

that this whole thing would be wrapped up very close to May the first 

anyway and so it's - things are good, put it that way.

Podcast (Tad): So are you saying that this whole thing was really just a setup?

Winston Shrout: (laughter) That's exactly what I'm saying.

Podcast (Tad): (laughter) So we don't have to be worried about you then?

Winston Shrout: People should worry about themselves.

Podcast (Tad): (laughter) Okay.

Winston Shrout: All this - certainly people that know my history know that I've worked in 

the international because of certain abilities, capacities, you know, and 

things that I have demonstrated. That's why I was given this assignment 

Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment H, Page 3 of 56

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out of the international, to accomplish these things, and a lot of people 

don't know, well certainly your listeners should know, that Keith Scott and 

I, Keith being another official; he's actually the chief of the cabinet in the 

OITC, the Office of International Treasury Control, and also as the settler 

on the Soekarno Trust. We got together back in 2012 and put that huge 

commercial lean in against the Federal Reserve Banks...

Podcast (Tad): A huh.

Winston Shrout: Which prevents, prevented them from rechartering, so they had to be 

melded into the US treasury; cause you know that the Federal Reserve 

Bank is a simply private central bank which has caused havoc all over the 

planet...

Podcast (Tad): Oh yeah.

Winston Shrout: ...and a lot of people know that, I mean for instance, way back in the days 

of Goldwater and certainly of Ron Paul and several others have been, ya 

know, trying to push for an audit and of course you can't audit them and 

so, what they wanted to do, in essence, Keith and I accomplished that. 

So we have a lot of interesting things going on. This is a continuation of 

some of that. Uh, the changes in government certain, uh you know, prec 

- uh I always work from the back - that wasn't called a background. Keith 

and I always do that.

Podcast (Tad): Okay.

Winston Shrout: And that is, we simply don't step to the front and [unintelligible] work on 

things; but in any event, what has been done rectifies some of the 

problems with the financial on the planet. For instance, I don't know, it 

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seemed like it was about 2011 or something like that, Keith and I had 

worked on a treatise, or what you would call a white paper, the purpose of 

which was to inform the financial ministers of the problems with the 

central banks and so we created that treatise and we sent it around to the 

various financial ministers in Europe. Michael Noonan, the financial 

minister in Ireland, took it to heart, so he challenged the banks on this 

basis, which was simply, if you can prove you loaned us any money, we 

will gladly repay you. If you can't prove that you loaned us any money, 

basically, go pound sand.

Podcast (Tad): Right (laughter)

Winston Shrout: [unintelligible] We had that same thing going on with Greece and they 

handed it up, but making sure the guy who would do that was not elected. 

I forgot his name now, I can't even pronounce those Greek names 

anyway. But in any event, if the right guy had got elected in Greece, they 

would have done the same thing. So, you know, in the background, we 

try to, how shall I say, inform the international community of some of the 

problems, you know, that they run into and uh, in some respects, we've 

had a good affect; in other, you know, other respects, you know, we 

haven't done so well, but in any event, as we move forward in this new 

paradigm, this new government and so forth, then there were certain 

things that I felt like that needed to be accomplished, and so that's what I 

did. 

Podcast (Tad): Wow. So we don't have to be too worried about ya. You've got 

everything under control then?

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Winston Shrout: No, people should worry about themselves. 

Podcast (Tad): Now what do you mean by that?

Winston Shrout: Well, an informed public is the best defense, if I can use that word, 

against tyranny. You know that?

Podcast (Tad): Well, yeah.

Winston Shrout: But we've known that for a long time certainly. 

Podcast (Tad): Unfortunately.

Winston Shrout: Now these events, well...

Podcast (Tad): Unfortunately, we don't have an informed populus. We have a dumbed 

down, distracted, watch-my-football populus.

Winston Shrout: In some respects that's the case, but not in every respect. We have a lot 

of informed people. Certainly, I would hope the people on this call would 

be well-informed. 

Podcast (Tad): Well, yeah on this call they are. 

Winston Shrout: So uh, again, we just tried to get everybody up to speed as far as 

possible to help them in their effort, and so forth, and so uh, I don't think 

we've had a good impact on that, uh you know, I'm not the judge of 

people and what their intentions and so forth are, but all indications to me 

indicate that people are becoming more aware and waking up. So that's 

a good thing. 

Podcast (Tad): Yeah it is. It's just for me, it's so frustrating to hear those dummies that 

think they are so smart because they don't believe in conspiracy theories. 

They're just too smart, not knowing that they have been programmed to 

say that. 

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Winston Shrout: Well, let's not be too critical. From the time that people entered the public 

education system, they're highly controlled and it's very hard to break 

through that, you know, certainly as anybody that's been through that 

system knows. I mean, I went through 16 years of formal education, 

came out of college and said what was that all about? (laughter)... 

Podcast (laughter)

Winston Shrout: ...and went my way. But in any event, I would think that we ought not be 

super critical, certainly, of people because of the circumstance that they 

found themselves in.

Podcast (Tad): Well, you know, it's like the people on this call, that's one thing, but when I 

go out into the world with average people out there who don't know, it's - 

and for me, it's just second nature, all of this stuff - it's just part of who I 

am now and then when I, you know, let it slip and you know, I just get a 

bunch of garbage from people you haven't really, you know, had an 

original thought in their life.

Winston Shrout: Well, okay, but again, you don't know what precipitated that situation in 

their lives.

Podcast (Tad): Sure. Sure.

Winston Shrout: You have to be careful not to castigate people for what they don't have 

and so certainly for those of us who are enlightened, we should bring 

those things to their attention and we have. Like I say, I've been working 

as a solutions in commerce now for over 11 years...

Podcast (Tad): Wow.

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Winston Shrout: I've seen a remarkable upturn, uh, in the consciousness of the people, so 

again, we have to be real careful... 

Podcast (Tad): Okay.

Winston Shrout: ...about how we address some of the situations the people have to deal 

with, you know, you know, the only thing is, you know, but for the grace of 

God go I. But we have to be very careful that we don't, you know...

Podcast (Tad): Okay. Well...

Winston Shrout: ...point too many fingers.

Podcast (Tad): I understand. I understand. It's just that, you know, I bump into people 

sometimes and it gets unpleasant and it's frustrating, that's all. 

Winston Shrout: Then just walk away and go do something else.

Podcast (Tad): (laughter) I don't - alright, well that's great to hear, that you're really not in 

as bad a trouble as the papers make it sound.

Winston Shrout: Do you believe what you read in the papers?

Podcast (Tad): No, but a lot of people do...

Winston Shrout: [unintelligible]

Podcast (Tad): ...and if I, if I were to believe what the papers say, you are the 100 trillion 

dollar man.

Winston Shrout: Oh, that's nowhere close to it.

Podcast (Tad): (laughter)

Winston Shrout: Alright, lemme, lemme back up and tell you some of the things that we did 

back in 2010, while I got that appointment...

Podcast (Tad): Okay.

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Winston Shrout: ...from Dr. Ray C. Dam. He said, I want you to be OITC in the United 

States because I'll notify all of the parties of that appointment, which was 

probably a bad thing to do on the basis as just as soon as he made a 

report, then the first thing you know, they're trying to kill him.

Podcast (Tad): Oooo...

Winston Shrout: And they almost did. They tried to poison him to death. He recovered. 

Eventually, he was taken in by the king of Thailand under his complete 

protection so nobody can touch him at this point. But in any event, he 

sent me on that mission and so the first thing I did when I got back is I 

contacted some of the people that I had been working with, and uh, what 

was anticipated was that we would get into a bank trading program, which 

we did. I wrote the instrument, some of these instruments these guys are 

squawking about now. Anyway, I wrote the instrument. There was a 

gentleman that was able to get those things into a trade program in HSBC 

Hong Kong and one of the others of our group, he had good contacts and 

so he went around and contacted all of the secondary mortgage paper 

holders.

Podcast (Tad): Okay?

Winston Shrout: On this basis that uh, uh, well he made an arrangement with them, that 

they would sell their paper to us, uh and most of them were willing to sell 

it for something like (laughter), like 25 or 30 cents on the dollar, and so 

we went ahead and did this trade to obtain the funds to buy all that 

secondary mortgage paper and had we been able to do that, we could've 

shut down all the foreclosures. Now, uh, the problem was with the HSBC 

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Hong Kong, in as much as they decided they simply would not pay us on 

the trade, because, after the [unintelligible] our program right up front, and 

then we got with another organization who said they could, but they lied 

too. I mean, when you get involved with international, some of these 

people, first off, the order of the day is "let's go tell a lie to whoever will 

believe it." So, we had that problem, you know, right from the git-go and 

had we been able to accomplish, you know, what we had intended to, 

then we could have, in fact, put an end to the mortgage problem; because 

that's what Dr. Dam had sent me to do. He said "get over there", he said, 

"and fix that mortgage problem." He said "we're embarrassed". He said 

"OITC is embarrassed" on the basis that we underwrite all of those 

mortgages, and he was highly inflamed about it was being handled. He 

said "get over there and see if you can't get that problem fixed" and so 

that's why I had originally actually got involved in the trade, was to create 

the funds necessary to solve that problem. So, there's a reason why I do 

things, uh, I don't do things for fun (laughter)...

Podcast (Tad): [unintelligible]

Winston Shrout: ...believe me, I've got better things to do than screw around with all of 

this stuff. But in any event, uh you know, on that basis then we had 

attempted to get those trades operating again, not because of something 

that we wanted, but it was on the purpose to resolve some of these 

problems that had been created by these predatory lending banks.

Podcast (Tad): [unintelligible]

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Winston Shrout: You know, as you know, it's not an easy, not an easy row to hoe

sometimes and so, like I say, if HSBC had been paid off properly, we 

know the trade went through because, the uh, the UN got 76 trillion out of 

that trade, and so we know it went through, and uh, we should've gotten 

out of that trade. We should've gotten certainly sufficient that we could 

have retired all of that mortgage debacle. You know, those are the kind 

of things that I work at and of course it infuriates the powers that be when 

somebody steps forward, so they've got to correct this problem. So, but 

in any event, uh, this is probably something that your average guy 

wouldn't want to attempt, for obvious reasons.

Podcast (Tad): Right.

Winston Shrout: And so uh, which is not a criticism of anybody, I'm just saying that, you 

know, some of these things are very difficult and should not be attempted

by amateurs. The truth be known, I'm the only, I'm certainly authorized 

to, uh, to issue a bill of exchange (laughter), probably the only guy on the 

planet that is. But in any event, so the treasury, the DOJ, they take 

exception to that and say, "Let's go get Winston" and I say "okay, come 

on."

Podcast (Tad): (laughter) 

Winston Shrout: So this is part of the takedown of the corporate government as you know, 

the United States has been run like the United States Incorporated, which 

is simply a maritime corporation out of Puerto Rico and Bill Clinton said 

"I'm the last United States president", and that's the only time that boy 

ever told the truth that I know of.

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Podcast (Tad): (laughter) 

Winston Shrout: Because it was...the bankruptcy of the United States of America was 

overweight in 1999, so Bill was telling the truth about that and, you know, 

whether he knew it or not, what the reason for it was or not, he did tell the 

truth on that occasion, so we'll take him...we'll...

Podcast (Tad): [unintelligible]

Winston Shrout: ...give him credit for that.

Podcast (Tad): "I'm the last president of the United States...hey sweetheart, what's your 

name?" (imitating Bill Clinton).

Winston Shrout: (laughter) 

Podcast (Tad): (laughter)

Winston Shrout: Yeah, that's kinda pretty much how he operates.

Podcast (Tad): (laughter)

Winston Shrout: But in any event, maybe we can go on and talk about some other things 

that might be of interest... 

Podcast (Tad): Okay.

Winston Shrout: ...to your listeners.

Podcast (Tad): Okay. Well, originally, I saw a video that you did, I forget who it was that 

put it on, but you talked a little bit about common law and commercial law 

and your take on it was that, you know, people are saying they always 

want common law, but they never..wait, wait, wait. You said that common 

law deals with the past, commercial law deals with the future, and a lot of 

us have been saying, well, we want common law, but then you brought up 

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this point of, well, how do you deal with dangerous situations, such as a 

guy stockpiling explosives in his garage right next door to your house?

Winston Shrout: Yeah, yeah, that's a bad deal all right.

Podcast (Tad): So, maybe you could go over more on that subject, about the difference 

between commercial law and common law, and maybe an ideal, the ideal 

way that we can operate so that we can...

Winston Shrout: All right. Yeah, lemme...[unintelligible]

Podcast (Tad): ...have our freedoms, but address issues.

Winston Shrout: Yeah, lemme run that down for you.

Podcast (Tad): Okay.

Winston Shrout: There's what is known as universal law, and that's God's law, and it's best 

exemplified certainly in natural law, mother nature, and uh, you know, 

how things actually run, the consequences of violating natural law. So, 

my comment was directed at the problems that are created when we go 

into common law. Now people don't know what common law is, perhaps, 

but every country, every people, has their own common law based on 

history, presidents and usage. All right? So, uh, for instance, when the 

United States was contemplating which common law they would adopt, 

most of the founding fathers being Englishmen, decided that they would 

use English common law. However, we had a huge German population 

living on the continent at that time, so they could've just as well use 

Anglo-Saxon common law rather than English common law. Okay, but 

they settled on English common law, and, which is (laughter) which is 

kind of, in my estimation, the wrong choice. We should've developed our 

Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment H, Page 13 of 56

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own common law based, because again, we were starting a new nation, 

we had the Declaration of Independence; we had the constitution and so 

forth.

Podcast (Tad): A huh. 

Winston Shrout: Why should we go to the English common law? If you look at the history 

of England, it's nothing but a complete screw up.

Podcast (Tad): (laughter)

Winston Shrout: Why would we want to repeat that mess? But, in any event, they 

decided on English common law and the consequence of it, what we had, 

or what we have, and, but let me observe this one that; that is, that 

because you use the words common law, it does not indicate, by any 

stretch of the imagination, that you are actually operating with natural or 

universal law and so, if, you know for instance, if you go back to the 

original use of common law and the way it was perceived of in the 

constitution and so forth, only white landowners could vote. Right? No 

women. No Africans and no Indians could participate in the election 

process. Now that's very, very one-sided, of course.

Podcast (Tad): Right.

Winston Shrout: Now we think we've gotten past that, uh (laughter)...

Podcast (Tad): (laughter) 

Winston Shrout: I kinda have to scratch my head a little bit before I'd agree to that.

Podcast (Tad): Yeah, and now everybody in the world can vote in our elections.

Winston Shrout: What can I tell you?

Podcast (Tad): (laughter)

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Winston Shrout: So we have some of these difficulties, you know, associated, uh, with 

what we call the common law, and I, I keep hearing people, you know, 

touting that we need to return to common law and so my question is 

"which common law do you want to return to?" See? Because you might 

find that your version of common law might, in fact, but a direct affront to 

natural law. So anyway, people need to study that thought process out 

and do it. Now, the question is, and a good comparison would be to see 

whether or not our version of the common law conforms to the King 

James version of the bible; and you'd probably find out that in many 

instances, it does not. However, if you would go and investigate the 

commercial maxims, or the maxims of commercial law, you will find that 

the commercial maxims comply exactly with the concepts, principles and 

so forth that are contained in King James. So, my preference, uh, you 

know, call me greedy or whatever, anyway, my preference for law, for a 

law system, is in fact commercial law. That kinda makes sense.

Podcast (Tad): Hmmm, okay. Um, would that include traffic tickets?

Winston Shrout: Oh, traffic tickets ain't got anything to do with law. That's all just code 

stuff.

Podcast (Tad): Okay. Would that have to do with prosecutors, prosecuting innocent 

people over code violations?

Winston Shrout: Well certainly it does, but we don't need to get into the particulars of all 

that. 

Podcast (Tad): Okay.

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Winston Shrout: Enough said, it's sufficient to say that the codes and statutes and so forth 

are illegal. Now, the [unintelligible] studied, uh, you certainly should be 

aware that the only thing that obligates people are the statutes at large, 

which are published, which are properly enacted and published so that 

everybody can see them.

Podcast (Tad): Okay.

Winston Shrout: But when you get into all of these statutes and codes and so forth, you're 

talking about, in essence, a whole potpourri of illegal action, because

there's nothing within the statutes and codes that obligate anyone. So, in, 

in your conversation there about traffic tickets and all that kinda stuff, 

that's all just all foolishness, and not even worth talking about.

Podcast (Tad): (laughter) Well, I know what you do when you get traffic tickets. It's 

funny. (laughter)

Winston Shrout: I, I don't recommend people do what I do.

Podcast (Tad): (laughter) 

Winston Shrout: Everybody, everybody needs to stand on their own. Every cup's gotta 

stand on it's own bottom and so, uh, you know people have to, you know, 

get in sync with what, with what they feel like, so...

Podcast (Tad): All right.

Winston Shrout: So people have asked me about, you know, about this or that, I'll say, 

whoa, you know? What do you understand, you know, what's your 

understanding of these things and what are you going to do about it? 

Certainly, I can provide information that might be useful, but I'm not going 

to dictate to anybody what they ought to do, so, so, that's why...

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Podcast (Tad): Sure.

Winston Shrout: ...that's why I put together education, so that people could have an idea, 

you know, of how to conduct their lives and so forth, and then move 

forward on their own. Uh, you know, people do not need to rely upon 

Winston or upon Tad, or upon anybody. You need to stand on your own 

because you're convinced that the course you're taking in regard to a 

certain matter is the correct course to take. And so that's why we do 

education, is so that people can stand on their own. We're, we're

involving in empowering people, you know, people all, and you know a lot 

of people say we want to be free. Okay, but there's a cost. I mean there 

is a certain amount of responsibility that comes with being, what we would 

basically call free people. And so, you know, I hear people running 

around yelling out "I'm free, I'm sovereign" and all these kind of things and 

I keep saying really? (laughter) You are huh? Reach in your pocket 

there and see if you have any Federal Reserve notes? 

Podcast (Tad): Right. So Winston...

Winston Shrout: [unintelligible]

Podcast (Tad): Are you, are you available now to take questions?

Winston Shrout: Well if that's what people want. Like I say, it's your call. You tell me what 

you want.

Podcast (Tad): Sure. All right. Well, if anybody has questions for Winston, it's *8 on your 

phone. Uh, somebody...oh my gosh. Somebody says, "What was the 

real agenda of the Pope's tour to America last fall? I heard he transferred 

trusteeship to the UN?"

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Winston Shrout: Uh, I wasn't privy to all the meetings, but there are certain things that 

came from it that are obvious. Number one, prior to his coming, you'll 

notice that the disincorporated Washington D.C.

Podcast (Tad): I didn't know that.

Winston Shrout: Oh yeah. Well, it was in the newspaper (laughter) 

Podcast (Tad): (laughter) Okay.

Winston Shrout: Uh, the only reason it actually got in the newspaper was because a 

portion of that ten square miles actually was a part of Maryland, so 

Virginia was trying to claim all of it and the people there in, uh, Maryland 

said, "the heck you are", I mean, "we're the ones that gave that portion 

over there and we're keeping it", you know, so it got into a land squabble, 

and so forth...

Podcast (Tad): Okay.

Winston Shrout: ...And once it got into that squabble, then pretty soon it hit the 

newspapers. If it hadn't been for that squabble, it probably never 

would've come up.

Podcast (Tad): Wow.

Winston Shrout: And an....and another thing that was a result, like I say, I wasn't privy to 

the meetings, I don't know what was said behind closed doors, all the 

purposes and so forth, that were being addressed in that situation; but 

you will notice that just as soon as Francis got back to the Vatican, he 

fired the, I think, five or six, I think it was five, he fi....he fired five of the 

cardinals out of the Vatican Bank, because they'd been involved in 

laundering drug money. You know, I don't think Francis thought that was 

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such a cool idea. So, so we do see some results of it. Like I say, I can't 

really address all of the things that may have come from that because I 

simply don't know, but it's pretty obvious...

Podcast (Tad): Okay.

Winston Shrout: ...that there were results that came from that. Certainly, you, you know, 

this concept of universal jubilee, and some of those things were 

addressed at that time. It's [unintelligible] hopefully they'll carry through 

with it, but that's yet to be seen. We will see what comes of it, and uh...

Podcast (Tad): All right. Well hey listen, we've got a bunch of people that have raised 

their hand that wanna talk to you.

Winston Shrout: All right. Well, you're the moderator and you can get to see what you 

need.

Podcast (Tad): (laughter) All right, we're going to go to central California with your phone 

unmuted, it's your turn.

Caller #1: Uh, hello, I think that's me.

Podcast (Tad): Yes.

Caller #1: I just wonder how the not guilty plea got entered on Winston's behalf, and 

how did you allow that and is that part of your game plan?

Winston Shrout: No, when I first went in, I tried to plead guilty in magistrate court, then 

they threw a fit.

Podcast (Tad): (laughter) 

Winston Shrout: I said, "Okay, just go ahead and do whatever you want to", because by 

that time, by that time, I had already filed papers into that case appointing 

the judge as the fiduciary trustee for the defendant...

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Caller #1: Mhmm.

Winston Shrout: So, so at that point, the judge was entering the plea for the defendant. I 

had nothing to do with it.

Caller #1: Okay. Mhmm.

Podcast (Tad): All right.

Caller #1: Okay, thank you.

Winston Shrout: [unintelligible] understand that [unintelligible] 

Podcast (Tad): All right. Thank you.

Winston Shrout: Technology. Yeah.

Podcast (Tad): All right, so now we go to Oregon. You're next. Hopefully.

Caller #2: Oh, you, you got me?

Podcast (Tad): Uh, you're talking so go ahead.

Caller #2: Oh, okay. Well, I wanna congratulate Winston on his work. Um, I'm 

following this stuff now and it seems to be working well. I was just 

curious, are you actually gonna go through with this court case on the 

31st, or is this all over with? I got in late...

Winston Shrout: No, no, no, I, no, what I did, as I mentioned earlier on that first go-round, 

like I said, I was trying to plead guilty and what I said was, told the court, 

on the first arraignment, which was all silly little IRS misdemeanors, I told 

the judge that I intended to plead guilty just as soon as the prosecutor

would read and certify the charges for the record. Which he said he 

couldn't do. But in any event, that went back and forth. He refused to do 

it. So we got into another hearing and again I told him, my intention is to 

plead guilty, and then they all got in a big uproar about it and this, and 

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that and the other and so finally, like I said, you know, I did not put in a 

plea. It was, in fact, the judge who was, even though he had not even 

read the file, if he had read the file, he might not have done that, but in 

any event, he's the one that put in the plea, not me. 

Caller #2: Well, it kinda sounds to me like uh it was the same thing with the police 

officer that signed the tickets for ya. Social contract.

Winston Shrout: Uh, yeah, yeah, a huh, along that same thought process, yeah.

Caller #2: One other thing, uh, you said, you stated that you were a welder at one 

time?

Winston Shrout: Oh yeah.

Caller #2: Okay, I spent about 30 years as a welder, so I'm kinda looking at you as a 

real guy.

Winston Shrout: Well yeah, that's uh, you know, I have found that people that work, uh, in 

the, uh you know, electricians, carpenters, plumbers, all those kinda 

things, especially the farmers, oh God when the farmers come around, 

you have to watch out - but those who have worked in the trades and 

worked in the real world, if I can use that word, they seem to comprehend 

this information a whole lot quicker than others do; which is not to say, 

you know, that there's anything wrong with those people. I'm just saying 

they seem to pick it up much faster.

Podcast (Tad): Hmmm.

Caller #2: It has been my pleasure to be able to talk to you and I wish you the best, 

and I think that you're on the right track to help a lot of individuals. One 

time...

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Winston Shrout: Yeah [unintelligible]

Caller #2 ...probably sooner than later, we're all going to change the frequency on 

this thing and get away from all of it.

Winston Shrout: Exactly. Yeah, that's coming very quickly. I, I mean, aside from all of this 

third dimensional stuff that I involve myself in, I also work in the higher 

dimensions, uh you know, I came onto this planet under contract. I'm one 

of the contractees. I came in in 1948, and I have worked in other 

circumstances and much, much higher dimensions than this one....i.

really don't like being here, to be perfectly honest.

Podcast (Tad): (laughter) 

Winston Shrout: But in any event, I contracted for certain things and I will keep my 

contract. And so these things that I am doing is just simply a part of the 

things I committed to do sometime ago.

Caller #2: Great job at it, and I hope that you can [unintelligible] because I'm right 

behind you 100%.

Winston Shrout: That's great. 

Podcast (Tad): All right.

Winston Shrout: I really appreciate it.

Podcast (Tad): Well thank you very much. Okay, so, let's see, we've got South Carolina, 

you're next.

Caller #3: First of all, I'd like to say it's an honor to be speaking with you. I've been 

following your teachings and doing my own due diligence on them, and 

it's been very helpful in my way.

Winston Shrout: Great.

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Caller #3: Um, I did have a question for you though. Um, let's say if you were to 

have something like a lien set up on someone and you actually have a 

court order dismissing all the charges...um, as educational purposes, um, 

would you think to go the public or private route forward?

Winston Shrout: Well, lemme discuss that. Are you talking about a commercial lien from 

the private sector?

Caller #3: Well yes, I did a commercial lien on the private side because of the 

property, and they violated my rights with the contract and a contract was 

in place, you know, on top of that contract being in place, I ended up 

fighting it in court and the judge dismissed all of the charges in my favor 

and the judge knew the lien was in place.

Winston Shrout: All right. Well, that's natural that they would do that, but again, the 

commercial liens on the private side and a public official cannot dismiss 

that; and so the commercial lien is still in play. I mean...

Caller #3: Yes.

Winston Shrout: It does not go away.

Caller #3: It's interesting because um, a copy of the agreement was sent out to the 

Secretary of State and they sent back a blank UCC1 financing statement.

Winston Shrout: (laughter) Really?

Caller #3: Yes, really.

Winston Shrout: [unintelligible]

Caller #3: And the number wasn't as close as your numbers are, reportedly, but uh, 

it was, it was, it's, it's a very high number.

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Winston Shrout: Well, you know the commercial lien process has been a very, very 

valuable technique. I did...

Caller #3: Yes sir. 

Winston Shrout: I did not invent it. Actually, I learned that technique from a man named 

Harper Vandyke, and he used it very successfully in many endeavors and 

so forth and so uh, you know, because I'm in the position of being an 

educator and stuff like that, I'm kinda the guy that made it popular. But 

again, that's uh Harper's technology and I've simply just uh spread the 

information around to facilitate that. But it's, it is very good technology. 

We've used it very successful, successfully in many instances to resolve 

problems and so forth; and again, it's kind of an extreme thing that we do, 

uh, but it does have good affect. 

Caller #3: Oh yes sir it does and I just wanted to say thank you very much! Thank 

you very, very much!

Winston Shrout: (laughter) Okay.

Podcast (Tad): Thank you very much for calling. Okay, so now we go to Oregon. You're 

next. Your phone unmuted. Go ahead Oregon.

Caller #4: Hi Tad. 

Podcast (Tad): Hey Genevieve.

Caller #4: Genevieve here. (laughter) Hello Winston, this is Genevieve.

Winston Shrout: Hello.

Caller #4: You said earlier something about May 1st will be the wrap-up date...

Winston Shrout: Yeah.

Caller #4: ...and what does that refer to?

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Winston Shrout: Uh, I suppose, uh, that it has reference to the complete takeover of the, 

by the new government; maybe Tad I can just real quickly rehearse what 

has been done and what is being done?

Podcast (Tad): Yeah, go for it.

Winston Shrout: Yeah, it goes all the way back to the Civil War. A lot of people don't 

understand that the whole country has been under military occupation 

ever since the Civil War. Uh, the, it, the, the war has been mislabeled. It 

was not a war between the states. It was a war of the Federal 

government against the states. And so as a result of the things that went 

on there, the whole country came under military occupation and we've 

operated that way since. Now some of you, perhaps, have listened to 

Drake Bailey and Drake had been involved in this for a very long time, but 

uh, also myself, uh probably about seven or eight years ago, one of my 

high-level CIA sources told me that the US Army had, in fact, created a 

full-blown interim government and they were stationed in West Virginia. 

So, uh, and they were simply there waiting until such a time that it would 

be necessary for them to step forward. At this point in history, they had 

stepped forward and then, there was a certain amount of concern that, 

they were worried that the people might think that this is a military coup, 

you know, that could (laughter) that's nowhere close to it. It's not a 

military coup. In fact, a correction. So, they went into operation near the 

start of 2015 and there are certain things that had to happen in order to 

be recognized as a valid government. Number one, they had to create a 

national currency, but they lacked gold. They did not have any gold with 

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which they could comply with Basel III and so there had to be some 

things done, and so in consequence of that, the Chinese elders along 

about April of 2015, leased 100 billion in gold to the new republic and they 

also gave them 385 billion in cash for operational expenses. Now these 

are things that I know about. I was informed of these things by my friend 

in the international. He said, "Okay, here's what's happened." All right. 

Now, now that they had the gold, so they could create a new currency 

that would be Basel III compliant, they moved forward and they created 

what, what is known as treasury reserve notes. These, these particular 

instruments are for use at the government level. They are not on the 

street. However, they had been trading in the international, uh I mean, 

they were being traded in Europe all through the summer and Japanese 

stock markets 4X and everything. They were trading on them in the fall, 

so we know it's valid, so we know it's good currency. Now, for the money 

on the street, the money that you and I would be using, they have created 

what's known as United States notes, much like what President Kennedy 

had created way back in 1963. Some of you who've studied their history 

know what I'm talking about. So in any event, those currencies will be the 

currencies that will come out and be used to facilitate the changeover, 

and they are being used. They're already in the banks. We had been 

really surprised that they have not instituted those same...that they 

haven't released those funds already, but I see the wisdom in what 

they're doing. So when this interim government first entered the picture, it 

was said that General Carter Hamm would be the interim president. Then 

Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment H, Page 26 of 56

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they run into certain road blocks, most of which were centered with the 

problems in the Pentagon. They overcame those problems and so at that 

point, Marine Corps General Dunford, semper fi out there for all you 

Marines, but in any event General Dunford was selected to be the interim 

president because he was in fact, he was appointed by congress to be 

the joint chief. They got rid of Martin Dempsey finally, thank God for that, 

but in any event, General Dunford did fill the roll at that point as the 

interim president. And then they got to thinking, apparently, and so they 

changed course a bit and they went back and referenced what had 

happened with the Nixon administration. Some of you old enough to 

remember that, remember Nixon and Spiro Agnew came in...

Caller #4: Oh yeah.

Winston Shrout: Who came in as the president and vice president, and then Agnew got 

convicted or got some felonies thrown at him, so he stepped down. They 

brought in Nelson Rockefeller. Apparently Nelson passed away from 

unknown causes (laughter). In any event, so, so what they did to fill the 

vice presidency was they called in the Speaker of the House, Gerald 

Ford, because he's third in line, so that when Nixon stepped down, we 

would have an, a, we would, we would have an unelected president, we 

have President Ford, and that's what I'm building up to here is given a 

little bit of comprehension about how some of these things have worked. 

So anyway, at this juncture, Dunford has stepped down from being the 

interim president and he's going to fill the slot as the vice president, and 

then guess who's going to be the interim president? The Speaker of the 

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House. You see, we have the president, yeah, we have the president 

already in our history, so hopefully the people would not think that there's 

something amiss with what's going on here; and so we have that with us 

and, so that's, that's, that's the lineup. Now, I did watch, I was hoping he 

would make announcements. He did not make any announcements, but 

Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House, did, in fact, make a speech the other 

day to a bunch of young people there, and I was hoping he would make 

announcements. He did not, but what he did do, I watched him, is 

(laughter) you gotta understand the psychology of what's going on here 

folks. What he did was he started out his speech, which only lasted I 

don't know, maybe 15 or 20 minutes, but he started out his speech and 

would talk about this or that, and then he reached into his coat pocket, he 

pulled out a pocket version of the constitution, just like all the patriots 

carry around...

Caller #4: (Laughter)

Winston Shrout: ...he pulled out that pocket version of the US Constitution and held it up 

to the young people to see. He held it up high so they could see what he 

had in his hand. And then he said, "I took an oath for this constitution", 

and he said, "and I will honor my oath." Now that was a (laughter), that 

was unexpected to say the least (laughter). But in any event, he made 

that point, and that was an important point to make, and so I could see 

the psychology of what he was doing there, even though he didn't make 

any particular announcements about the new republic, he did 

demonstrate to those young people that in fact, he was going to honor his 

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oath that he had made to the constitution. Now that's a very significant 

event. Very significant. I, I was ever so proud of him for doing that. So, 

we do have, uh, things, uh, changing. We have things on the more and 

so forth, the result of which will be very beneficial to the American people. 

We have a new government and for those of you who understand the 

SARA act of 2000, that will in fact begin to be executed upon with this 

new administration. So we have, we have great prospects here of things 

to come.

Caller #4: Is the new government that's coming in associated with RUSA? 

Winston Shrout: Not that I know of.

Caller #4: [unintelligible]

Podcast (Tad): Okay. But hey listen, we do have some other people that are waiting. 

Caller #4: Okay.

Podcast (Tad): Okay. (laughter) 

Caller #4: But wait, wait. There's a follow up to, the reason I asked that question 

was to get to my next question.

Podcast (Tad): Quickly please.

Caller #4: So, if things are going to change quite radically it sounds around May 1st, 

does that mean that the status correction to become American nationals 

and UCC filings to become secured party creditor are kind of mute now?

Winston Shrout: Absolutely not.

Caller #4: Huh?

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Winston Shrout: The thing that we're going, the commercial redemption, will stay the 

same. The only problems that you wont have to deal with is IRS and tax 

problems. [unintelligible]

Podcast (Tad): What about corrupt judges?

Winston Shrout: They'll be gone. When the bar...

Podcast (Tad): [unintelligible]

Winston Shrout: When the Bar Association, which I did, when you take down the Bar 

Association, then all the attorneys will either have to renounce their bar 

oath, you they take an oath at the Bar, which is actually the Temple Bar in 

the City of London. So, so they will have to either renounce that and 

become lawyers, but they can't be attorneys anymore. So, with those 

changes on the horizon, we expect to see, you know, very, very good 

results.

Caller #4: Okay, so, so keep doing the status correction and the secured party 

creditor stuff?

Winston Shrout: Yeah, uh, uh again, those are on the commercial side. Commerce, listen, 

commerce rules the planet. I don't care what country you're in. 

Commerce rules the planet, not some law from some country and all 

those kind of things. And so, so all the things that you are learning about 

in commerce and with commercial redemption, accepted for value and all 

those kind of things, they stay the same even though we have a new 

currency. The only difference between our new currency and the Federal 

Reserve note is that our new currency will not be used at interest. The 

new currency is substance backed and a lot of people, I don't c...all the 

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crazy stuff out here in the Internet, the Federal Reserve notes were 

always backed by gold, they always were, and the only problems that 

came from the use of the Federal Reserve notes, which was in fact an 

international currency, the United States was the only country on the 

planet that did not have its own national currency, slight we were using 

Federal Reserve notes as our currency, but every time we used it, there 

was interest attached to it which created what people call the national 

debt. It's not a national debt, it's a federal debt. So in consequence of 

those things, we've had this millstone hung around our neck through the 

use of Federal Reserve notes. Now the new currency that comes out is 

going to be exactly the same variety of instrument with the exception that 

there is no interest attached to the use of it. Does that kinda make 

sense?

Caller #4: Okay. So, so...

Podcast (Tad): All right.

Caller #4: So the treasure will actually have some money that we are dealing with

now?

Winston Shrout: The new treasury is located in Nevada on an Indian reservation.

Caller #4: Huh?

Winston Shrout: Yep.

Caller #4: Okay, well...

Winston Shrout: [unintelligible] Indian reservations have free trade zones.

Caller #4: Okay, well I've, of course I have more questions, but Tad, I know you're 

chomping at the bit, so I'll get off.

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Podcast (Tad): Yep, we do. We've got a lot of people.

Caller #4: I know.

Podcast (Tad): All right. Thank you.

Caller #4: Thank you so much, both of you.

Podcast (Tad): You bet.

Caller #4: Goodnight.

Podcast (Tad): Okay, Pennsylvania, you're next. Pennsylvania, you're phone just 

unmuted. We can hear you. Go ahead. Okay? Guest 72 with your 

phone unmuted, it's your turn. Guest...

Caller #5: Did you say West Virginia.

Podcast (Tad): Yeah, go ahead. I said you. Go ahead.

Caller #5: Oh, okay. Yeah. Hey Winston, how's it going'?

Winston Shrout: Pretty good.

Caller #5: Right on. Hey um, all of this UCC and status correction under commerce 

and all that you've been propounding, I was wondering if you actually 

knew how it is actually based upon the 14th amendment, and could you 

run us through the words, because I've got a nice neat little write-up here 

that I did where I could connect the 14th amendment and uh, person, and 

a corporation and all, tie all of that together and then tie it to people that 

call themselves US citizens and US nationals and American nationals, 

etcetera?

Winston Shrout: Okay. Lemme, lemme start out this explanation with the following, and 

that is, one of the reasons why, or one of the results of, of what I've done 

as an educator to help build self confidence in people, and, and, one of 

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the things I keep seeing, you know, is in so many people, because of the 

way they’ve been trained and all of those kinda things, actually lack, lack 

in self confidence and as a consequence of that, then they feel 

threatened. You know, the big government comes in and threatens 

people and puts them into fear.

Caller #5: Mhmm.

Winston Shrout: And fear is your worst enemy. 

Caller #5: Oh yeah.

Winston Shrout: And so, like I always tell people, paper does not work. People work. And 

so we simply use paper as a crutch when we're interacting with the 

powers that be, and so we try to hold them to their system, which many 

times they don't pay any attention to, obviously. But in any event, one of 

the main results of education is that people gain a certain amount of self 

confidence in themselves. If paper is needed to create that crutch, that's 

okay. But when you're healed, then you don't need that crutch anymore, 

and so, but one of the goals that, certainly as an educator, that I've tried 

to instill in people is that self confidence so they can stand on their own, 

and that's what I hope to be able to accomplish.

Caller #5: Yeah, but people love socialism. Americans love being socialists. We 

love our socialism. We have to have it. That's why nobody wants to get 

rid of the social security number, which is the identification number used 

to identify persons, and like it says in the 14th amendment, section one, 

all persons, person being the key word there, born or naturalized in the 

United States and subject to, subject to being another key legal term, to 

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the jurisdiction thereof are citizens, another key legal term, citizens of the 

United States. Right? So then they took the word person, right there, 

and connected it to citizen. Now a person is a citizen, right? All right. 

Well...

Winston Shrout: [unintelligible] (laughter) 

Caller #5: Well, they went and got subject to, well subject to means liable or 

subordinate or subservient, inferior, obedient to, governed or ruled, 

affected by, right? So now what are they saying there? All persons who 

are born and naturalized in the United States are ruled by the jurisdiction 

thereof and are, well, subject, subject to, subjects of the United States. 

The United States has only three definitions and they're all congress, 

congress and congress. Okay?

Podcast (Tad): Okay, so can we maybe kind of get quicker to the point here?

Caller #5: Oh yeah. Yeah. Um, well the point is that what you're doing, Winston, is 

you're telling these people to step out of being US citizens, federal level, 

and step over to being US nationals, or American nationals, which is, 

which is the same exact thing, and they're still corporations and they're 

still using a social security number and they're still part of the federal 

government. The federal government is defined as a union of nations. 

You're not bringing them into the nation, you're [unintelligible] federal 

government, flying on the same shit they've been on this whole time.

Winston Shrout: Yeah, again, you know, the, you are what you say, you are what you say 

you are and you, they try to obligate people because people are not 

educated and so myself and yourself, and all the ones on this call, are 

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apparently educated at least to a certain level and so then we try to act on 

those things and try to encourage people around us to do the same thing. 

But, I see your point and you're preaching to the choir here 'cause I think 

you and I see eye-to-eye with this pretty much, so...

Caller #5: Well, all they've really gotta do, all folks really gotta do is go look up 

National Mutual Insurance Company of the District of Columbia versus 

Tidewater Transfer Company, 337 US 58293L and 1556 from 1948 and it 

says right there, United States citizens do not equal and article 3 court, 

which is the courts of justice, the natural ones that come out of the US 

constitution. All US citizens are governed under Article 1 courts, created 

by congress, which is the illegal de facto government. It's not the de jour 

that we're supposed to be under and yes Winston, I'm speaking to you on 

your level because I'm your equal. I'm not your subordinate. I'm not one 

of your students. I started about a year before you did and I know as 

much as you do. I started with GPG. I do corporate. I understand 

commercial law. But I also understand correction of status and you're 

wanting these people to stay at federal level when they might start 

claiming their nationalities at state level, not at federal, at state, because 

according to oh my God, according to the United States government 

printing off style manual, subsection 5.23, "in designating the natives of 

the states, the following forms will be used" and it's speaking directly of 

nationalities, and it lists all of the states right there. Okay? Those are 

nationalities. Federal is not a nation. Federal is federal. It's a federation. 

Like the Kung Federation.

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Podcast (Tad): All right. Well, let's let him respond. So Winston, you have anything you 

wanna say about that?

Winston Shrout: Well yeah. We, we did have the problem after the Civil War, then 

certainly in 1933 when the money changed over. It caused real problems 

on the basis that it was impossible from that point on to contract unless 

you used gold or silver and so with, with the change in money, we had the 

change in administration, we had to change in government and so forth, 

and you're right, I mean, I'm not disputing at all what you're saying here 

and I, I do understand, certainly, about the states' rights. I mean, for 

crying out loud, you know, my grandfathers fought in that war on the side 

of the South for states' rights, so I understand very much what you are 

saying here. So the question is, is how do we go about restoring the 

states' rights and the only way that we can do that certainly is to get rid of 

the federal government, and that's what exactly what's happening here 

with the institution of this new interim situation here. So, we've got our 

eyes fixed upon that, certainly the purpose, one of the purposes of this 

whole operation right here is to get back to constitutional government, so 

that's what the effort has and is being done right now. And so when that 

happens, then if we can successfully negotiate all of that, we will go back 

to states' rights, and uh, so, I'm, you know, I'm with you on it. I've got 

absolutely nothing against what you said.

Caller #5: Well...

Podcast (Tad): So, well we do have some other people that are waiting, so I have to 

kinda cut this short.

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Caller #5: Okay. Well Winston, I'm glad that you and I can see eye-to-eye on some 

things, but factually, there is a route out and it is to drop the US citizen 

feder - all those contracts. All those contracts. They are commercial. 

You need to get rid of them. You need to rescind them. Tell the US 

government to keep their stuff, you know?

Winston Shrout: I think you need to revoke them, not rescind them.

Caller #5: Well, revoke and rescind, yeah well, it all, I guess it all comes down to 

which specific definition you're wanting to use.

Winston Shrout: Yeah.

Podcast (Tad): All right. Well hey, thank you very much for calling in. We appreciate...

Caller #5: Thank you and it had to be done.

Podcast (Tad): Major Thrash, you're next.

Caller #6: Hi, well...

Podcast (Tad): And don't, and don't be thrashing on Winston either.

Caller #6: I'll try not to.

Podcast (Tad): (Laughter)

Caller #6: It, it sounds like the federal government is...

Podcast (Tad): Hey, wait a minute, wait hey, are you on a speaker phone?

Caller #6: I'm on Skype.

Podcast (Tad): Well, get close to the microphone cause we are having a hard time 

hearing you.

Caller #6: All right. Well, if the federal government is going to be, sounds like, giving 

up some power, um, what I'd like to know, Winston, your opinion, is 

what's going on with the southwest states, particularly like the Guadalupe 

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states. Are we gonna, is there a possibility of us possibly losing some of 

those southwestern states?

Winston Shrout: Why, why would we lose them?

Caller #6: Well, I was just wondering. I heard there was, that that treaty, there might 

have been some flaws in that and with the federal government possibly 

giving up some of their power, is would there be a possibility of the states 

saying "hey, you know, we're stepping out and we got an opportunity...?

Winston Shrout: Let...yeah, let me answer that from the following, and that is, if you go 

back to the very start and you notice the intervention that was 

accomplished by St. Germain. St. Germain was the individual that 

caused the people, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, he 

ordered them to go forward and sign that. Now, there is a term, which is 

incorrectly used by the way, but there is a term which is known as, the 

people call it manifest destiny, but that's not the right word. You, you 

have to go scriptural to actually put a good definition on this. But in any 

event, the United States does have a mandate on this planet and so, uh, 

in regards to your question, would we lose any of these, any states 

because of the Treaty of Guadalupe at [unintelligible] 1:11:52 all that 

kinda thing. No, they, they will still be 50 states. Now that's a significant 

number and I would have to go, with a lot of background, to explain why 

that is, but to answer your question, no, we're not going to lose any 

because they will all be included and they always will be.

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Caller #6: Okay, well then how about, what's your opinion on this north American 

union? Is that going to be continuing forward? Are they going to be 

pushing for that, or is that now kinda done?

Winston Shrout: That's now done.

Caller #6: Okay. That's it. That's all I had. Thank you.

Podcast (Tad): All right. Thank you very much. Um, central Minnesota, you're next. 

Your phone unmuted, it's your turn. In Minnesota, your phone unmuted, 

it's your turn.

Caller #7: Yes, how you doin'?

Podcast (Tad): Yes, go ahead.

Caller #7: I had a question for you. I keep hearing you use the scripture and I also 

have heard you speak about how D.C. has unincorporated themselves. 

Is that correct?

Winston Shrout: Yeah, it was in the newspaper back east. I saw the newspaper. That's 

the only announcement that I ever saw of it.

Caller #7: Right. So, are there any suggestions that you have for us to kinda protect 

ourselves and commerce as we operate on a daily basis? You know, you 

hear people talking about rescinding the social security number. Is there 

any protection for a body of people utilizing, you know, unincorporated 

entities and things of that nature?

Winston Shrout: No.

Caller #7: [unintelligible]

Winston Shrout: Okay, the purpose of this new government is a rollback to constitutional 

government. Now, what does that mean? I mean, if we're talking about a 

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rollback to pre-Civil War federal takeover of the country, what does that 

mean? And so, so think about that. I, I think, you know, there's a lot 

more that can be said about it certainly, but in any event, I don't believe 

that you're going to be in any kinda danger anyway. I mean, we're going 

into a rollback on the problem and so when we get the restoration of the 

new government, if you want to call it that, it's actually not the new 

government, it's the old government that's been restored; and so, I don't 

think you're going to run into any kind of problems, you know, in that 

context.

Caller #7: But, shouldn't the goal be for us as individuals to get out of the corporate 

states and it sounds like you're saying get back to the laws of nature and 

what governs us in our natural state, so we should be, in a sense, trying 

to get back to divine law on a daily basis. Correct?

Winston Shrout: Yeah, I believe that would be the best avenue for people to take. Again, 

like, you know, I don't want to be accused of preaching here, but if you go 

back into the King James version, it seems fairly accurate in many 

respects in as much as the lawyers and so forth came to Jesus and 

asked him about the law and all that kinda stuff. And what did he say? 

He said there are only two laws, and that is to respect or love God, your 

creator; he said number two was to love your neighbor as yourself, and 

he said, all the law and the prophets hang on those two things. Now, if 

that's the case, if, if all the law of the prophets hangs on those two things, 

then that's the law. That is the law, and so, if we're, if we are practicing 

the, what's called "the golden rule", if we're practicing the golden rule, 

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then we are in conformity to how our creator would like for us to perform. 

And so again, without preaching and at times people accuse me of that, 

but, but it's what we have. It's what we have to work with and so, uh, uh, 

all of these other things, uh, uh, constitution, laws, statutes at large, all 

the other countries have all of their laws and precedents and all these 

kind of things; if they conformed with those two things that Jesus 

indicated, then that's a good law. If it does not conform to those two 

things, then it is a bad law and needs to be removed. So, so, if you kinda, 

you know, set your attention onto that particular thought process there, I 

think you'll be okay.

Caller #7: Perfect. I agree and thank you. 

Podcast (Tad): All right. Thank you very much sir. Okay, we have our last caller of the 

evening, or last question of the evening and after this, you guys stick 

around, I have a little announcement to make, and so this is important 

stuff and I'm glad Winston's here to tell us what he's telling us, because 

we've got something that's going to be in line with what he's saying. 

Central Iowa, your phone unmuted, it's your turn.

Caller #8: Hi, this is John.

Podcast (Tad): Hey John.

Caller #8: Yeah just real quick. I had a mortgage problem back in 2013. I was 

going through, I decided to go through creditors in commerce. They had 

me do a couple bonds, very large amounts, and then the did work, but 

what ended up happening is I had the IRS come at me from left field. 

Just out of nowhere. I didn't even know if they were related or not, but 

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they came at me out of nowhere. So anyways, I ended up getting 

involved with a couple guys, Daniel and Josh from 

SecuredPartyCreditors.com, and they set me up. They told me what 

happened was the IRS basically was jealous, (laughter) in a sense, about 

the bonds, the large bonds that were submitted, and they set me up with 

a fee-off process. Now, it worked and the, not only that, my mortgage got 

offset, but I was wondering if you were familiar and had you considered 

it? I'm not sure if it even applies to your situation or not, but a fee-off 

process, have you consider that, or is that something that's not applicable 

to your situation?

Winston Shrout: Well, I'd have to look at it and see what it is. I'm not familiar with what 

you're doing, so you know, I really can't comment on that.

Caller #8: Okay, are you familiar with Daniel and Josh at all?

Winston Shrout: Uh... 

Caller #8: Over there at Secured Party Creditors?

Winston Shrout: Uh, uh, do you have their last names?

Caller #8: Daniel Stevens. I know he says, I think they're familiar with you. I don't 

know if you're familiar with them or not.

Winston Shrout: Yeah probably they're familiar with me. Listen, I don't know everything 

and certainly, I'm not a guru, and if other people have processes and so 

forth that they can make work, I'm all for it [unintelligible] again, I'm....

Caller #8: Yeah, [unintelligible]

Winston Shrout: not really...huh?

Caller #8: I said, well, it, it worked and was interesting. Sorry to interrupt.

Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment H, Page 42 of 56

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Winston Shrout: Great. Great. Great. Hey, if it worked...my, my statement is if it ain't 

broke, don't fix it and it sounds they've got something there that works 

pretty good, so uh, I...

Caller #8: Yeah, well I guess my main question is do you think the IRS got jealous 

over something you did, being that maybe you submitted large amounts 

and they kinda, kinda wanted their share. Do you think that could've been 

something that happened?

Winston Shrout: [unintelligible] You have to go ask, you have to go ask the IRS. I don't 

know how them people think. (laughter).

Caller #8: Okay (laughter). All right. Well thanks so much.

Podcast (Tad): All right. Thank you.

Caller #8: Appreciate the time. Yeah, bye.

Podcast (Tad): All right. So you guys in line with what Winston says and with that last 

caller, we have our own secure party creditor and status correction coach 

at youhavetheright.com and coming up really soon, keep an eye out for 

youhavetheright.com because we're going to be holding another course 

here in proper UCC filings on how to be a creditor and to take care of 

certain issues such as taxes and ports situations. So, you guys be sure 

to check that out. Winston, I was almost ready to go, but somebody from 

east Maryland raised their hand. Can you take one more question?

Winston Shrout: It's up to you.

Podcast (Tad): Sure. Let's do this. All right, go ahead Maryland.

Caller #9: (crackles)

Podcast (Tad): Oh, that's not good. 

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Caller #9: Yes, I'm wanting to...

Podcast (Tad): We hear you.

Caller #9: Yeah. I wanted to ask a question about a mortgage. If I had the numbers 

correct, 12USC1901.508, it talks about the, it talks about a note being 

disch - well, a note being passed over to the Federal Reserve Board for 

cancellation, that note being a mortgage note and in reference to, I think, 

28USC or CFR, oh, I'm sorry, the first one is CFR, 7CFR1901.508 and 

the other one is 28USC411. They take the notes and they homogenize, 

or they, they uh change them into securities and sell them on the market. 

Is that illegal?

Winston Shrout: Uh, okay. Uh, err, are, are you asking is it illegal, or are you asking is it 

unlawful?

Caller #9: Unlawful.

Winston Shrout: Yeah, it's unlawful. 

Caller #9: Okay.

Winston Shrout: Is it illegal? The answer is probably not. First of all, you have to 

understands that the United States code was written by attorneys for their 

benefit and so when you start to talk about, you know, how, how they do 

things and how they handle stuff, uh again, the whole process was 

created by attorneys and you should know how that works out. So, in 

regards to a lot of the situations which you run into with some of these 

difficulties and so forth, so the question is always, you know, will they 

abide by their own statutes and codes and they very seldom ever do 

anyway. So, we're always faced with that same difficulty when we deal 

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with these people in as much as they simple don't even abide by their 

own statutes and codes, unless there are debts in it. So, uh, if you can 

force them to abide by their own codes and so forth, you would probably 

have some success with that. If you can't, you know, get them to abide 

by their own rules and regulations and so forth, you're simply up against a 

wall. So, uh, uh, in that regard, just, you know, keep plugging along at it. 

Like I say, in regards to these mortgages, you know, you need to go and 

listen to a lady, uh, I think some of you probably have; a lady called 

Catherine Austin Fitts, wherein she talked about the money being 

siphoned off from the mortgage foreclosures by the secret space, the 

black ops, with the secret space people; and uh, they do, they do that, 

and they have done it and most of the debt [unintelligible] certainly of the 

people in the country. But in any event, going with what she had to say, 

because perhaps it will explain many things that heretofore have been 

unexplainable. [unintelligible]

Caller #9: Could you....

Winston Shrout: You know, when we started fighting all of these mortgages and stuff and 

took them into the court, even though we had, even though we had it 

locked in, according to the statutes and codes, unifor..the US code and 

everything, surprise, surprise, you know, (laughter) the judges would 

simply rule against us. And we kept scratching our head wondering why 

that is. Well the reason why it is, is again, because they don't even abide 

their own statutes and codes and then, in the background, the money 

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from the mortgage foreclosures and so forth was being siphoned off by 

the black ops people who run the secret space program. [unintelligible] 

Caller #9: Could you sp....

Winston Shrout: [unintelligible] what...huh?

Caller #9: Could you spell the last name of the lady again?

Winston Shrout: Yeah, her name is Catherine Austin Fitts, F I T T S, and her position had 

been she was one of the assistant directors, I think, of HUD and the FHA 

and so forth, when she started to try to audit, the uh, uh, the agencies and 

stuff, she came upon all kinds of things that really caused great alarm and 

when she went to investigate where the money actually had gone to, she 

found out. So, so it's not just being able to go into court and properly 

speak your piece (laughter). What're you going to do against the, uh, uh, 

these operators of the, uh, secret space program. This is crazy stuff 

folks. 

Caller #9: (Laughter)

Winston Shrout: Really crazy stuff. And so, you know, we've come up, we've come up 

against a lot of this and you know, some of it didn’t work out good, and so 

we just have to keep plugging along at the best we can. In the instance 

of this one gentleman who spoke a moment ago where they did that 

certain operation with the creditors in commerce, it seemed to work. 

Would it work the next time? We don't know, because the whole thing is 

so capricious that you can't predict one day to the next how things are 

going to turn out. Th - you know, this is crazy stuff we've been dealing 

with here. So you know, just a word to the wise, you know, there's 50 

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ways to skin a cat (laughter) and sometimes the problem is holding that 

cat down so you can get it skinned. 

Caller #9: Huh.

Winston Shrout: [unintelligible] you probably have run into that problem. You go to court 

for instance, you've done everything right, your paperwork is all correct, 

you know, and you say, I've got it locked down now, and the first thing 

you know, the judge says "nope" and there you are. You're right back to 

the same problem. And so, will the, will the courts abide by their own 

rules and regulations to that question; and in far too many instances, they 

simply will not, and so then Catherine found out why it was that they 

would not. Because the, a lot of the money was being simply siphoned 

off by the secret, whatever you call it, space program. So we've got all 

this crazy stuff going on and there's a lot of things in the background that 

absolutely make no sense to us, you know, when we go and try to, you 

know, fix some of these problems and whatnot, and so it's unpredictable 

how things are going to work out. So it would be, certainly, important, you 

know, for people that are trying to work some of these mortgages and 

some of these other things out, is to have one or two backup plans 

because you don't know what these dirty buggers are going to do. It's 

totally unpredictable.

Caller #9: Well Winston, will that black ops program disappear in May?

Winston Shrout: Uh... 

Caller #9: What I mean - let me put it another way. Will the, the a criminal element 

in that, I don't want to say, for lack of a better term, the criminal element, 

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meaning the nondisclosure of it, the oversight of it, will that change? 

Because there is really no oversight except for that group that's selected 

to even know about it.

Winston Shrout: Uh, I would probably say that no it will not disappear, but for this reason; 

which is that we actually need that program. Okay, I have to go into 

space to explain this to you, Tad, if you've got a few minutes, I will explain 

it.

Caller #9: Well Winston, let me clarify it. I know it won't disappear because it 

exists... 

Winston Shrout: Yeah.

Podcast (Tad): Well...

Caller #9: ...and it's real, but I mean the...

Podcast (Tad): I, I think, allow me to clarify. I think what he's saying is yes, the program 

is still going to be there, but it's going to be controlled by the good guys 

and not the bad guys.

Caller #9: Yeah, that's what...yeah, that's what...yeah, right. 

Podcast (Tad): Okay.

Caller #9: Okay.

Podcast (Tad): Okay.

Caller #9: Yeah. Right. Okay.

Podcast (Tad): So, based on that Winston, was there something more that you wanted to 

say about that?

Winston Shrout: Yeah, uh... 

Podcast (Tad): Yeah, go for it.

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Winston Shrout: I've done a great deal of study about this. Some of you may perhaps 

have listened to an individual on the Internet called Captain K. That's 

actually, that's Randy [unintelligible] name. Anyway, I've come to have an 

opportunity to visit with Randy, Randy Cramer is his real name. Anyway, 

he explained a lot of things to me about the space program and why its 

necessary. Now, do you have to divide it down between the good guys 

and the bad guys? Because there are some criminal elements involved 

in that. For instance, the Dick Chaney, uh, the international corporation 

that's mining on Mars is actually Dick Cheney's corporation. And then 

you have the US Marine Corps special section that was actually put in 

place to guard the interests of that mining corporation and that's who 

Randy was working for when he was on Mars. And so, uh, so, in regards 

to the question, "will that go away?", I would have to suppose not. Uh, on 

the basis that we actually need a space-based program, but we do not 

need the space program in the hands of those, you know, like Cheney 

and Paul [unintelligible]. So, I would suspect probably that more of these 

things will be revealed. There's a lot going on, I mean, if you really want 

to get into this and start, you know, looking at it pretty closely, I think I 

would go back and start with the information that was put out by Dr. Frank 

Stranges where he talked about the visitors in the Pentagon, the stranger 

in the Pentagon. On the basis that we have had intervention on the 

planet all along, uh you know, human beings on this planet are 

transplants, who can, you know, we've been here under certain 

circumstances and so forth all along and so, so when you start to talk 

Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment H, Page 49 of 56

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about, you know, you know, can we do this or that, you know, you just 

have to realize that entities or just call them people, because their people, 

they're our space cousins and so forth. They do have a vested interest in 

the outcome of things that transpire here on the planet, and they do 

intervene, and they, they go to work, they do this, they do that to make 

things right. We have, watch, just watch, let me put it that way, just watch 

what goes on because there are some major, major, major, major events 

which will happen and are happening even as I speak. Uh, for instance, 

NASA, uh it was about, I don't know, about three months ago, there was 

some entities that came into the planet and nobody knew where they 

came from, that kind of entity had never been on this planet ever before, 

according to the people, you know, that know those kind of things; and so 

they were trying to figure out what it was all about until about a month ago 

or so. NASA, you know, the US space program, located out in the 

universe there somewhere, a huge black hole and they didn't know what it 

was or what the circumstance was going to be with it, but low and behold, 

a huge, a huge ship came through that black hole headed for our solar 

system. And then checking with....I put this in front of James Gilliland, I 

said, do you know what that is? He said, well, he said it appears to be an 

11th dimension ship and the entities that are on that ship are 11th 

dimension entities and, and James didn't know why they were coming. 

Now, I have speculated on why I think they're coming and I might be dead 

wrong; I might be dead wrong. But in any event, we have these things 

going on basically all the time around us and so we're just trying to figure 

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out how does that equate to events here on the planet. But, 2016 is a 

significant year for the planet. The planet is actually coming up in 

frequency, which is immeasurable, and they do measure that. The 

ultimate destiny of planet earth is to be a 7th dimension planet, and in 

consequence of that, you know, the people, you and I, we have to 

accommodate that change and if we don't accommodate that change, 

then the consequences to us individually will be very significant. So, 

aside from all of this crazy commerce stuff, you know, and money, and all 

these things, you know, that we've been working with to try to get some 

kind of sanity about us with the things that go along on the planet and so 

forth, the planet has an ultimate destiny and we need to go along with it, 

the consequences being that if we do not, then we will no longer be - if - 

put it this way, if you can't accommodate the frequency of the planet as it 

changes, you can no longer be here. That's, that's pretty heavy stuff. I 

realize it is kind of heavy to think about the consequences that might 

come to us in the event that we don't move up in our frequency. So, 

aside from all of this talk about commercial redemption and UCC filings 

and all that kinda stuff, the main, uh, result that - lemme say this as an 

educator - the main result that I have seen through my efforts in this 

regard is to, is to promote people to a higher spiritual dimension and have 

we accomplished that; and the answer is yes. When I first started out in 

2004, that's [unintelligible] commerce, I mean, down to our present time, 

and I've been at this over 11 years now, but I have seen the change in the 

receptibility of people to the information and it has been a good change. 

Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment H, Page 51 of 56

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And so, so we have uh, uh, we have all of these things going on and, and, 

you know, I am very much encouraged. I am very, very much 

encouraged by the progress that we, we the people, are making in this 

respect and I believe, I believe that we have, that we will accomplish what 

it was that we came onto this planet to accomplish and those that are not, 

those that do not keep up with the proper frequencies and change their 

lives, if they don't change their life, they will simply be removed from the 

planet. Now that, that's kind of a hard thing to have to say, but I believe 

that that is exactly the circumstance, you know, that, that we're having to 

deal with. So be...

Podcast (Tad): Okay, so...

Winston Shrout: ...be encouraged. Be encouraged. Uh....

Podcast (Tad): Well...

Winston Shrout: [unintelligible] up your frequencies.

Podcast (Tad): On that note, if somebody is not encouraged, would you be willing to 

respond to a negative comment.

Winston Shrout: I'll respond to any comment.

Podcast (Tad): (laughter) "There's another lie. There is no mining on Mars. Just wait 

until May and either nothing happens or nothing good happens and ya'll 

realize that Shrout is a liar. Let me guess. Here we go with the repeat of 

the Drake Bailey lies, aliens will be taking everyone to their planet for 

safety in two weeks."

Winston Shrout: I don't know what Drake had to say, but it's very evident to me that the 

events that are transpiring on the planet are being orchestrated by people 

Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment H, Page 52 of 56

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who are beyond the planet. When people ask me, Winston, you know, 

who is it that you're doing all of this for? And I come right back with St. 

Germain is my boss and I do his bidding. And one, one of the first things 

that people have to understand about this commercial redemption, the 

first thing that I saw when I first started studying commercial redemption 

was you have to understand it from a metaphysical point of view and if 

you can't comprehend it from a metaphysical point of view, you're simply 

not going to get it.

Podcast (Tad): Okay.

Winston Shrout: So, I have tried to emphasize that particular situation over and over again, 

uh you know, with some good results and some not so good results, but 

you ha, you simply, you have to go spiritual. We are in a spiritual 

awakening and, and certainly the efforts we've made, uh, to, uh education 

and all those kind of things are so very essential to that awakening 

because...here's the thing, we have been under serious mind control. I 

don't think anybody would disagree with me on that. We have been 

under serious mind control and so how to you break that? How do you 

break that down so that you get out of that cycle? You know, all it takes 

and what I've seen, uh you know, in the things that I've done, is, is that if I 

can give people one new way to look at a situation, then they can start to 

break through that mind control cycle that they've been trapped in and so, 

like I say, once we get past the 100th monkey, once we get into infusing 

into the collective consciousness, the principle, not the details, but the 

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principles of commercial redemption and so forth, it goes a long way to 

helping people...

Podcast (Tad): Well...

Winston Shrout: ...break the mind control.

Podcast (Tad): Another question on the board. Somebody wants to have St. Germain's 

phone number and email address.

Winston Shrout: Okay, go for it.

Podcast (Tad): (laughter) I think they're asking you (laughter). Um...

Winston Shrout: I work with St. Germain in the ether.

Podcast (Tad): Ah. 

Winston Shrout: We make plans about what needs to be done and because I'm in the third 

dimension, then I'm the guy that has to go and carry it out. 

Podcast (Tad): I think somebody's asked you, who is St. Germain? 

Winston Shrout: Well, we don't have time for all that.

Podcast (Tad): Okay.

Winston Shrout: But, he's, he's one of the ascended masters who has a great deal of 

concern about the outcome of things here on this planet and he is in fact 

the individual in our, in hour history that they call him the old professor 

and he's the one that demanded that those generalized there at the 

declaration, at Independence Hall, step forward and sign that document. 

So, he's always had a concern. He's always been involved in, uh, in our 

situation here. So...

Podcast (Tad): Well...

Winston Shrout: ...that's who it is.

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Podcast (Tad): You talked about the 100th monkey. I did some research on that project 

and it was touted as being monkeys that learned to do something one 

way on an island and then somehow got transferred over to the other 

island where the other monkeys started doing too, and that's, the 

research I've done shows that that is false - that is not, that was not the 

way that the study turned out. 

Winston Shrout: It depends on which archeologist you talk to.

Podcast (Tad): Okay.

Winston Shrout: (laughter) 'nough said.

Podcast (Tad): 'nough said. Okay. Uh, you know what, we do have one other person 

who's waiting, but you know what, we've been on for almost two hours. 

Winston Shrout: Yeah, we, we probably ought to knock it off, but again...

Podcast (Tad): Okay.

Winston Shrout: ...people should be encouraged of the changes that are coming about. 

We have a new government. We have a new country. We have new 

prospects. We have new opportunities. And the efforts that have been 

made by everyone to accomplish this have not gone unnoticed; so 

everybody needs to be proud of the effort that they have made to get this 

thing set straight and I applaud everyone who has had a hand in that, 

who has stepped forward in whatever, you know, whatever degree of 

effort and so forth, you've been able to accomplish, my hat goes off to you 

because of what you have done. 

Podcast (Tad): Well thank you on behalf of everybody that's muted. (laughter) 

Appreciate that. So, Winston, thank you very much for being on here 

Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment H, Page 55 of 56

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Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment H, Page 56 of 56

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 144 of 149
ATTACHMENT I 

United States v. Winston Shrout 

3:15-cr-00438-JO 

Product Page from WSSIC.com 

Re: 

2018 Members Only Event Seminar 

October 19-21, 2018 

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 145 of 149


ATTACHMENT J 

United States v. Winston Shrout 

3:15-cr-00438-JO 

E-mail dated September 26, 2018 

Case 3:15-cr-00438-JO Document 155-1 Filed 10/17/18 Page 148 of 149
1

Wexler, Stuart A. (TAX)

From: W S <w @scl law.com>

Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2018 1:26 PM

To: Wexler, Stuart A. (TAX)

Subject: Winston Shrout

Mr. Wexler - 

In all likelihood, you are already quite aware of this, but – well, Shrout may be too old|sick|incompetent to be 

sentenced, but he doesn’t let it affect his scamming. 

https://www.wssic.info/2018-members-only-event-new-gardener-membership-tuition-package/ 

‐ W S

Government's Sentencing Memorandum Attachment J, Page 1 of 1

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