BULLETIN: Grand Jury Returns Superseding Indictment Against AdSurfDaily Figure And Purported ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Kenneth Wayne Leaming

BULLETIN: (UPDATED 4:38 P.M. EDT U.S.A.) A federal grand jury in the Western District of Washington has returned a superseding indictment against AdSurfDaily figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming.

It is the second superseding indictment against Leaming. The first was filed in 2012.

The new indictment was returned yesterday, a day after the White House and the Justice Department referenced “sovereign citizens” in a policy announcement that pointed to an FBI site that defined “sovereign citizens” as “anti-government extremists who believe that even though they physically reside in this country, they are separate or ‘sovereign’ from the United States. As a result, they believe they don’t have to answer to any government authority, including courts, taxing entities, motor vehicle departments, or law enforcement.”

Leaming is 57. His alleged onetime business colleague David Carroll Stephenson, 57, also is named in the superseding indictment. The indictment formally accuses Leaming of filing false liens against a federal judge, two former federal prosecutors and a U.S. Secret Service agent who had roles in the ASD Ponzi case. The liens were filed in August 2010 and November 2010, according to the indictment.

Meanwhile, the indictment accuses Leaming and Stephenson of filing false liens against two U.S. prison officials in July 2011.

Leaming, meanwhile, was further accused of harboring two federal fugitives in 2010 and of being a felon in possession of six firearms.

At the same time, the indictment accuses Leaming of passing a bogus “Bonded Promissory Note” for $1 million in March 2008, in a bid to defraud the United States.

Leaming and Stephenson are being held at the SeaTac federal detention center near Seattle.

ASD was a $119 million Ponzi scheme brought down by the Secret Service in August 2008. Leaming reportedly was performing legal work for some ASD members, even though he is not an attorney.

Leaming was arrested in Spanaway, Wash., by an FBI terrorism Task Force in November 2011. He has been jailed since then. Stephenson already was serving a federal sentence for a tax crime when Leaming was arrested.

Leaming has an existing federal felony conviction for piloting an aircraft without a license.