4 Californians Indicted In ‘False Liens’ And Conspiracy Case; Prosecutors Say 2 Of The Scammers Hired Collection Agency To Pursue Government Official Over Nonexistent Debt And That False Tax Returns Seeking $60 Million Were Filed In 26 States

Three residents of Placerville, Calif. — Teresa Marie Marty, Charles Tingler and Victoria Tingler — have been charged in a superseding indictment with filing false liens against government officials performing their duties.

In what may be an emerging form of menacing aimed at government officials, one government worker was targeted with a fabricated $500,000 lien and two other bogus liens — and “Harris and Marty engaged a commercial collection agency” to collect on one of the fabricated debts, prosecutors said.

“Harris” refers to Pamela Harris, also of Placerville. She was described by prosecutors as an “office manager” at Advanced Financial Services (AFS), Marty’s company.

Marty has been charged with “filing liens against the property of three Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees,” prosecutors said.

She also “filed liens of at least $84 million against the property of two Justice Department attorneys involved in a lawsuit filed against her in 2009 to enjoin her” and AFS from preparing tax returns, prosecutors said.

From a statement by the U.S. Department of Justice (italics added):

According to the superseding indictment, the Tinglers were clients of Marty and AFS, who filed a false tax return in 2008 fraudulently claiming a refund of $358,415.  The indictment charges the Tinglers, as well as Marty, with filing this tax return. When the IRS tried to collect the fraudulently obtained refund, both Mr. and Mrs. Tingler filed multiple liens against the IRS revenue officer who was handling their collection case.

According to the charging documents the liens disclosed the social security numbers of the respective government employees. Marty and the Tinglers are also charged with multiple counts of unlawfully using the social security numbers of the government employees in the liens they filed with the California Secretary of State.

Finally, the indictment charges Marty, Mr. Tingler and AFS office manager Pamela Harris, of Placerville with participating in a conspiracy to defraud the IRS.  The indictment alleges that as part of the conspiracy, Harris and Marty engaged a commercial collection agency to collect one of the three false liens that Mr. Tingler had filed, one of which was in the amount of $500,000.

Marty, Harris, and Marty’s daughter, Rebecca Bandera-Marty, had previously been indicted in June 2013 for a large-scale tax-fraud scheme. Those charges are included in this superseding indictment.  According to the superseding indictment, in 2008 and 2009 Marty, Bandera-Marty, and Harris conspired to file at least 250 false individual federal income tax returns on behalf of individuals who resided in twenty-six states, and which claimed more than $60 million in false federal income tax refunds.

Cases involving the alleged filing of false liens against government employees have surfaced across the United States. The tactic, which has been described as “paper terrorism,” may involve the filing of purported UCC Financing Statements and has been associated with tax fraudsters and members of the so-called “sovereign citizens” movement.

Records show that, in 2011, a federal magistrate judge in California ordered that eight “UCC Financing Statements” filed by Marty “be declared null, void, and of no legal effect.” At least three of the statements targeted IRS workers. A fourth targeted a former U.S. Attorney who became a judge in California. A fifth targeted a Justice Department attorney.

Kenneth Wayne Leaming, a purported “sovereign citizen” and a figure in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi-scheme story, was convicted in March of filing bogus liens against public officials involved in the ASD prosecution.