UPDATED 8:55 P.M. ET (JAN. 6) TO CORRECT GEOGRAPHY ERROR . . . In a plea deal, a purported Wisconsin “sovereign citizen” and father of 11 children was ordered to spend 90 days in the Juneau County Jail for illegally transferring the ownership of property in a case that started as a bank-fraud prosecution.
John A. Glavin, 42, must also pay restitution of $44,737 to Necedah Bank “and refrain from filing more ‘sovereign citizen’ paperwork in any court as a condition of three-years of probation,” the Juneau County Star Times reported.
“Sovereign citizens” may have an irrational belief that laws do not apply to them and that courts have no authority over them. Cases involving “sovereigns” typically involve bizarre court pleadings. Some “sovereigns” have been known to file bogus liens against public officials, including judges, prosecutors and investigators. Public officials in Alaska have been targeted in murder plots. Banks and other financial institutions sometimes are targeted in “sovereign” schemes. From the Star Times (italics added):
[Juneau County Circuit Judge Paul] Curran pointed to a series of civil suits and small claims cases filed against Glavin in recent years by other institutions in which Glavin had also advanced sovereign citizen claims, including several suits ultimately rejected as “nonsense” by a federal judge.
“And yet you pursued it again in this case,” Curran said, adding that fidelity to a cause is often a good thing. “But fidelity to nonsense is no virtue.”