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Tag: Andrew Isaac Chance

  • RALEIGH NEWS OBSERVER: Purported ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Jailed In North Carolina, Amid Allegations He Filed Bogus Lien Against Wake County Court Clerk

    americaatrisk4It has happened again — this time in Raleigh, N.C., officials said.

    Sullivan Colin, 36, has been arrested on a charge of filing a false lien for $3 million against a court clerk who oversaw a foreclosure case, the Raleigh News Observer is reporting.

    From the News Observer (italics added):

    Court officials say the lien and a second one that . . .  Sullivan Colin, 36, was trying to file Friday when he was arrested, are part of harassment of court officials by adherents of a “sovereign citizen” movement that denies government authority.

    Colin was taken into custody at the Wake County Register of Deeds office Friday afternoon when he went there to file another lien, officials said, and was arrested Friday evening.

    Purported “sovereign citizens” have been implicated in bizarre plots in various U.S. states to file false liens against the property of public officials. The practice has been described as “paper terrorism.”

    AdSurfDaily figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming was convicted in March of multiple crimes, including filing bogus liens against federal officials involved in the prosecution of the $119 million ASD Ponzi scheme. In May, he was sentenced to eight years in federal prison.

    Former Leaming business associate David Carroll Stephenson also was convicted of filing false liens. He was sentenced to 10 years. Stephenson already was in jail for a tax scam.

    In March, two California scammers (Ronald Wesley Groves and Donald Charles Mann) who’d swindled investors in an “international bank trades” caper were sentenced to additional time for targeting a federal prosecutors and FBI agents with false liens.

    Earlier — in January 2013 — Robert Clifton Tanner, a purported Louisiana “sovereign citizen” implicated in a cross-border plot to file bogus financial judgments against state-court judges and others in Utah, was sentenced to 30 months in prison.

    In November 2012, Cherron Marie Phillips, a purported Illinois “sovereign citizen,” was charged with filing false liens that sought $100 billion each from former Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald and 11 other public officials, including a chief U.S. District Judge, a U.S. District Judge, two U.S. Magistrate Judges, an assistant U.S. Attorney, a federal court clerk, four federal Task Force officers and a federal agent.

    Harvey Douglas Goff, a purported Utah “sovereign citizen” who allegedly claimed he enjoyed “diplomatic immunity,” was charged in May 2011 with placing bogus liens seeking spectacular sums from public officials. He was sentenced in April 2013 to 36 months in federal prison.

    In 2011, California Ponzi schemer Thanh Viet Jeremy Cao pleaded gulity to federal charges in Nevada that he filed false liens against public officials. Meanwhile, Mark D. Leitner was indicted in Florida during the same year on charges of filing false liens for $48.489 billion against a number of federal employees.

    Flash forward to 2013, and Donald Joe Barber, a purported Alabama “sovereign citizen,” was convicted of fraud for trying to pay off a mortgage with a bogus “bonded promissory note.” Purported “sovereigns” have been linked to multiple forms of fraud

    Also see December 2010 story about a false-liens case against Andrew Isaac Chance in Maryland. Meanwhile, see a June 2010 story about a false-liens case against Ronald James Davenport in Washington state.

  • BULLETIN: Andrew Isaac Chance Sentenced To 65 Months In Federal Prison For False-Lien And Tax Scams; ‘Tax Defier’ Filed Bogus UCC Statement For $1.313 Billion Against Federal Prosecutor, Justice Department Says

    BULLETIN: Andrew Isaac Chance, the Maryland man described by the Justice Department as a “tax defier” and recidivist fraudster who filed a bogus lien for $1.313 billion against a federal prosecutor, has been sentenced to 65 months in federal prison.

    Chance, a retired station manager of the Washington (D.C.) Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, explained that he filed liens against the federal prosecutor and a Maryland state prosecutor because they had “done him wrong,” prosecutors said.

    The bogus lien against the federal prosecutor was in the form of a UCC Financing Statement filed in Maryland. The Uniform Commercial Code has been in the news in recent days in the context of purported “sovereign citizens.”

    Michael Lee Crane, an Arizona man now charged in three murders in late January, told a judge at his arraignment on the first two murder charges that “I would like to reserve my right to Uniform Commercial Code 1-207, and the Uniform Commercial Code 1-103.”

    Chance filed the false lien against the federal prosecutor who’d handled an earlier tax-fraud case against him “shortly after” Chance was released from prison. Chance, prosecutors said, was on federal probation when he filed the lien.

    After filing the bogus lien, Chance returned to the same behavior that landed him in prison initially, filing three false claims for tax refunds, prosecutors said.

    “This sentence shows that filing false tax returns and retaliating against federal prosecutors and other government officials, who are simply doing their jobs, will not be tolerated,” said John A. DiCicco, principal deputy assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Tax Division.

    In the false-liens case, Chance was charged under the same law federal prosecutors in Washington state used to charge AdSurfDaily figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming: Retaliating against a Federal judge or Federal law enforcement officer by false claim or slander of title.

    Leaming allegedly was involved in the filing of several retaliatory liens against federal officials.  He also faces charges of harboring fugitives, being a felon in possession of firearms and uttering a bogus “Bonded Promissory Note.”

  • UPDATE: Andrew Isaac Chance, 65, Convicted Of Filing False Lien For $1.313 Billion Against Federal Prosecutor In Maryland

    UPDATE: Andrew Isaac Chance, the Maryland man accused last year of filing a false lien against a federal prosecutor, has been convicted. Sentencing by U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr. is set for Feb. 15, the Justice Department announced in a news release last month.

    Chance, a recidivist who filed the lien while on probation for his 2007 conviction for making a false claim for in income-tax refund in 2005, targeted the prosecutor “[s]hortly after” Chance was released from prison in the tax case.

    Federal prison records say Chance is 65.

    The lien came in the firm of a UCC financing statement that claimed the prosecutor owed him $1.313 billion, the Justice Department said.

    Chance was charged in December 2010 with violating 18 U.S.C. § 1521: Retaliating against a Federal judge or Federal law enforcement officer by false claim or slander of title.

    AdSurfDaily figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming was charged by the FBI last month with violating the same statute, amid allegations he filed false liens against at least five public officials involved in the ASD Ponzi case. Leaming, 55, of Spanaway, Wash., is jailed at a federal detention center near Seattle.

    In December 2010, Chance also was charged with filing three false claims that sought $900,000 in  income-tax refunds. He was convicted last month on those counts, as well, prosecutors said.

    “This verdict is a clear message that filing false retaliatory liens against federal officials, including federal prosecutors who are simply doing their jobs, is illegal and will be punished,” said Deputy Assistant Attorney General Ronald A. Cimino of the Justice Department’s Tax Division.

    Prosecutors said Chance faces a maximum term of 25 years in federal prison and a fine of up to $ 1 million. He admitted filing the bogus lien against the federal prosecutor, explaining that the prosecutor had “done him wrong,” the Justice Department said.

    Chance, though, did not limit his lien escapades to the federal prosecutor, the Justice Department said.

    “The evidence showed that Chance filed a similar lien against a Maryland state prosecutor for her role in prosecuting him for crimes relating to his attempts to cash the fraudulently obtained U.S. Treasury check for the 2005 tax return,” the Justice Department said.

  • BULLETIN: Another ‘False Liens’ Case; Andrew Isaac Chance Charged With Filing $1.3 Billion Bogus Claim Against Federal Prosecutor In Maryland

    BULLETIN: A Maryland man has been indicted and arrested on charges of filing a false lien for more than $1.3 billion against a federal prosecutor who had successfully prosecuted him for filing a bogus income-tax return in 2007.

    Andrew Isaac Chance also has been charged with filing false tax returns for an entity known as “Andrew I. Chance Trust” in 2007, 2008 and 2009. He faces up to 25 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million if convicted on the new charges.

    In 2007, Chance was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison for filing a false tax claim for an entity known as “ANDREW CHANCE TRUST.” Chance sought a refund of $306,753 in that case, and refunds of $300,000 for each of the three years cited in the new case, prosecutors said.

    He is currently on federal probation — and now faces the new charges.

    Prosecutors said he placed a false lien of “$1.313 billion against the property” of the federal prosecutor in the earlier case. The prosecutor was an assistant U.S. Attorney, according to the U.S. Department of Justice and the IRS.

    A federal grand jury in Greenbelt, Md., returned the new indictments, the Justice Department and the IRS said.

    Bizarre paperwork attacks against prosecutors and other federal employees have occurred elsewhere in the United States. In July, a California man was indicted in Nevada on charges of filing 22 false liens ranging from $25 million to $300 million against the officials, prosecutors said.

    Thanh Viet Jeremy Cao also sought $20 billion in fraudulent tax refunds, prosecutors charged.

    In June, Ronald James Davenport of Deer Park, Wash., was charged with filing false liens against federal officials in Washington state.

    Davenport, who described himself as a “sovereign” being, sought the spectacular sum of nearly $5.2 billion from each of the officials, including U.S. Attorney James McDevitt of the Eastern District of Washington, an assistant U.S. attorney, a court clerk and an IRS agent, according to court records.

    Prosecutors in the Chance case in Maryland described him as a “tax defier.”

    Members of the AdSurfDaily autosurf — an alleged Ponzi scheme — have been associated with schemes to file liens or threats to file liens against judges, prosecutors and members of law enforcement.

    Some ASD members have described themselves as “sovereign” beings. Elsewhere, the three principal figures in the “3 Hebrew Boys” Ponzi case in South Carolina also described themselves as sovereign.

    The sentences handed out to the “3 Hebrew Boys” defendants were the longest in any federal Ponzi scheme case in South Carolina history, prosecutors said earlier this week. The sentences totaled 84 years — 27 years each for two defendants, and 30 years for a third.