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Tag: Harvey Douglas Goff

  • 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.

  • UPDATE: Harvey Douglas Goff Sentenced To 36 Months In Federal Prison, Ordered To Stay Away From ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Groups After Filing $53 TRILLION In False Liens And Trying To Smear Judge

    Harvey Douglas Goff
    Harvey Douglas Goff

    Harvey Douglas Goff, the Utah man who engaged in a bizarre hectoring campaign against public officials at the local, state and federal levels, has been sentenced to 36 months in federal prison and ordered to stay away from “sovereign citizen” groups for three years after his release.

    Goff is expected to begin his prison sentence by May 30, after being permitted to self-surrender. He pleaded guilty in December to obstruction of justice.

    U.S. District Judge David Nuffer sentenced Goff Monday, ordering three years’ supervised release in addition to the prison term.

    Among other things, Goff was accused of filing a false lien that sought $53 trillion. He also was accused of asserting that a “judge had provided him with tens of millions of dollars in cash in ‘suspicious’ transactions,” federal prosecutors said.

    “Sovereign citizens” have been known to try to intimidate public officials or turn the tables on them by submitting fraudulent reports to the IRS.

    As part of a plea agreement, Goff “admitted that between April and July of 2010 he endeavored to obstruct and influence the administration of justice in U.S. Tax Court,” federal prosecutors said. “He admitted that he repeatedly filed false and fictitious forms in a national database.”

    Some of Goff’s legal woes began after a traffic stop by police in Ogden. Goff retaliated by filing false liens for extraordinary sums, prosecutors said.

    At one point, prosecutors said, Goff claimed “diplomatic immunity.”

  • ANOTHER FALSE LIENS CASE: Man Who Asserted ‘Diplomatic Immunity’ Claimed Utah Officials Owed Him $53 TRILLION, Feds Say; Harvey Douglas Goff Charged In 14-Count Indictment After Probe By Joint Terrorism Task Force, IRS

    Harvey Douglas Goff. SOURCE: Weber County (Utah) Sheriff's Office.

    EDITOR’S NOTE: Longtime readers will recall that some members of Florida-based AdSurfDaily engaged in a hectoring campaign against public officials after the U.S. Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars in the ASD Ponzi case in August 2008. Such actions can lead to serious criminal consequences, as the story below illustrates.

    It has happened again — this time in Utah, this time involving claims for the spectacular sum of more than $53 TRILLION.

    Harvey Douglas Goff, 53, of Ogden, was indicted last month on charges he placed fraudulent liens against Utah public officials after asserting “diplomatic immunity” during a traffic stop last year.

    Goff filed bogus liens against 77 parcels in Weber County “[i]n an apparent effort to create an appearance of indebtedness” to him on the part of officials representing the state of Utah, Weber County, Ogden City and the Ogden Police Department, federal prosecutors said.

    He has been charged in a 14-count indictment with obstruction of justice, impeding internal revenue laws, filing fictitious obligations, attempted mail fraud and using the mail in furtherance of a scheme and artifice to defraud.

    In November 2010, prosecutors said, Goff “mailed” documents styled “Notice of International Commercial Claim Within the Admiralty ab initio Administrative Remedy of Harvey Douglas Goff, Jr., Creditor Secured Party,” prosecutors said. “The documents claimed the agencies contracted to pay more than $53 trillion in damages to Goff. The documents purported to be part of a ‘self-help administrative process’ and asserted that the recipients had 10 days to respond before a ‘default’ resulted.”

    The case in part traces its roots to encounters Goff had with law enforcement during traffic stops, including one in which he asserted “diplomatic immunity,” prosecutors said, charging that Goff also impeded tax laws and filed “false and frivolous documents” involving a judge in an IRS case.

    Goff challenged the jurisdiction of a state-court judge in pro se pleadings, but the court denied his arguments. When Goff failed to appear for a pretrial conference in December 2010, a bench warrant was issued, prosecutors said.

    After Goff was arrested on May 12, he refused to stand before U.S. Magistrate Judge Judge Samuel Alba, which led to an “intervention” by the U.S. Marshals Service, prosecutors said.

    Among other things, Goff refused the appointment of counsel, would not state his name or acknowledge his identity and “claimed he had been kidnapped from his home even though the Court made findings in his presence that federal agents had served a duly authorized search warrant,” prosecutors said.

    Goff was ordered to undergo a mental-health examination, prosecutors said. He potentially faces decades in prison if convicted on all counts.

    The two “fictitious obligation” counts alone carry penalties of up to 25 years in prison, prosecutors said.

    An investigation by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and the IRS continues, prosecutors said.