Raymond Leo Jarlik Bell, a 70-year-old purported “sovereign citizen” linked to AdSurfDaily figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming, has been sentenced to 97 months in federal prison for a tax scam.
In July 2011, federal agents found records of bogus liens filed by Leaming against public officials while executing a search warrant at Jarlik Bell’s residence in Yelm, Wash., according to court records. Bell was under investigation for his tax scam at the time the records were found. Leaming, 57, later was charged with filing bogus liens, harboring federal fugitives from Arkansas in Washington state and being a felon in possession of firearms, including a “street sweeper” shotgun and an assault rife.
Leaming was sentenced in May to eight years in federal prison. David Carroll Stephenson, another Leaming associate and purported “sovereign citizen” from Washington state, was sentenced in May to 10 years for filing bogus liens against two U.S. prison officials. Stephenson, 57, already was serving time for a tax scam when those liens were filed.
Jarlik Bell’s scam centered on filing for false tax refunds “using a scheme known as OID fraud,” prosecutors said.
OID fraud may include claims that the U.S. government maintains secret accounts for citizens and that such accounts can be tapped to receive tax “refunds” in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time if paperwork is filed in a certain manner.
“No matter what the promoter calls it, a scheme to file bogus tax returns claiming outrageous tax ‘refunds’ that don’t belong to you, is just fraud,” said Kenneth J. Hines, special agent in charge of IRS Criminal Investigation in Seattle.
“This defendant held himself out as a tax expert with contacts at the IRS – when both the IRS and a federal judge told him repeatedly that his conduct was criminal,” said U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan of the Western District of Washington. “Mr. Jarlik Bell believed he was above the law, and aggressively promoted and spread his scheme to others looking to duck their fair share and steal tax dollars through fraudulent refunds.”
From a statement by prosecutors (italics added):
In 2006, BELL obtained a tax refund in excess of $30,000 using the scheme. Numerous others who were advised by JARLIK BELL also filed for and received fraudulent refunds they did not deserve. One woman received a tax refund of more than $590,000. In 2005, JARLIK BELL was ordered by U.S. District Judge Robert J. Bryan to stop promoting fraudulent tax schemes. Less than three years later, he was back promoting another massive tax fraud among friends, family and strangers.
Ute Christine Jarlik Bell, Jarlik Bell’s wife, also is a purported “sovereign citizen” and tax scammer, prosecutors said. She is scheduled to be sentenced tomorrow on four counts of filing false, fictitious and fraudulent claims.
Jarlik Bell was convicted in March 2013 of five counts of filing false, fictitious and fraudulent claims, 15 counts of assisting in filing false tax returns, three counts of mail fraud, and one count of criminal contempt, prosecutors said.
U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton described Jarlik Bell’s scheme as “fraud at its core,” prosecutors said.
“You are hurting people intentionally, regardless of your adherence to [your beliefs],” prosecutors quoted Leighton as saying.
Leaming filed bogus liens against a federal judge, federal prosecutors and a U.S. Secret Service agent involved in the prosecution of the the ASD Ponzi scheme. The Secret Service has described ASD as a “criminal enterprise” that gathered about $119 million by duping people into believing that ASD’s purported payout of 1 percent a day came from legitimate means. ASD operator Andy Bowdoin, 78, is serving a 78-month prison term.
When Leaming was arrested in November 2011, investigators discovered he’d been harboring two federal fugitives from Arkansas charged with mail fraud in a separate home-business scheme that allegedly had gathered millions of dollars.
Leaming, who previously had sued President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder on a theory that Obama was not born in the United States and was an unlawful President who’d appointed Holder unlawfully, went on to claim that Leighton owed him 208,000 ounces of silver.
The lawsuit against Obama and Holder was tossed out of court by a federal judge.
BULLETIN: The November 2011 arrest by the FBI of Kenneth Wayne Leaming was part of a deeper probe into the activities of a “national” group of “sovereign citizens” operating in the Pacific Northwest, new court filings by federal prosecutors in the Western District of Washington reveal.
“Local jurisdictions alerted federal law enforcement that they had received a significant number of threats from members of this group,” prosecutors said.
Leaming, prosecutors said, was “a long-time constitutionalist/sovereign citizen, who had a
documented history of holding himself out as a law enforcement officer and/or a lawyer . . . He also was instrumental in founding the ‘County Rangers,’ the sovereign group’s armed enforcement wing. Members of the County Rangers were issued realistic-looking badges and credentials were required to possess firearms as part of their duties, and held themselves out as law enforcement agents.”
Leaming, 56, of Spanaway, Wash., is a figure in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme story. Some ASD members have claimed Leaming was performing legal work for them, and his name appears on the ASD court docket as the filer of a purported “Notice of Final Determination and Judgment.”
Such filings have been associated with the “sovereign citizens” movement.
As first reported on the PP Blog last year, Leaming, 56 and a convicted felon for piloting an aircraft without a license, was found with two federal fugitives from Arkansas at the time of his arrest.
Both of those fugitives — Timothy Shawn Donavan and Sharon Jeannette Henningsen — now have been convicted of multiple counts of mail fraud in a home-based business caper in Arkansas, according to court files.
The new filings by prosecutors came in response to a bid by Leaming to challenge the search warrant in the case and to suppress evidence against him.
Leaming was indicted on charges of filing false liens, harboring fugitives, possessing firearms as a convicted felon and uttering a bogus “Bonded Promissory Note” with a face value of $1 million and depositing it in U.S. Bank.
The bank “briefly credited Leaming’s account in the amount of $31,350, before realizing the amount was wholly fictitious and reversing the credit,” prosecutors said.
At least four of Leaming’s “sovereign” associates — David Russell Myrland, Timothy Garrison, Raymond Leo Jarlik-Bell and David Carroll Stephenson — already have been charged or convicted in various schemes, prosecutors said.
Bogus liens linked to Leaming were found during a search of Jarlik-Bell’s residence, prosecutors said, making a veiled reference to the ASD case as a “a large wire fraud case” in the District of Columbia.
Whether Jarlik-Bell has any ASD ties is unclear.
The liens had been filed with the Pierce County Auditor [in Washington state] against a “federal District Judge, an AUSA, and other federal agents and employees, ” prosecutors said.
Other records show that each of the alleged lien targets had ties to the ASD case, including U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer of the District of Columbia. Collyer presided over the ASD case.
Prosecutors now assert that agents conducted a search of Leaming’s Spanaway residence and found an “AK-47 style assault rifle with a bayonet; several handguns (one of which was in a drawer of the desk Leaming was sitting at as entry was made); two other rifles; and a shotgun.”
From the prosecution filing (italics added):
“Immediately after execution of the search warrant, but before Leaming was transported from the scene, agents asked Leaming questions about the presence of firearms for officer safety purposes. Leaming admitted that a number of firearms were present in the home.”
Meanwhile, agents found a “box of ‘County Ranger’ badges and other false law enforcement credentials,” prosecutors said.
At the same time, agents found “numerous boxes of correspondence and legal paperwork documenting other apparent fraud schemes,” prosecutors said.
Leaming is contending that the alleged liens aren’t really liens and, even if they were, “he had some constitutional right to file them,” prosecutors said.
He also contends that he has a Constitutional right to possess firearms as a convicted felon and that the government is not permitted to regulate firearms ownership, prosecutors said.
As the investigation continued more bogus liens were discovered against other government officials, prosecutors said.
Those liens have been linked to Leaming and Stephenson, a jailed former business colleague of Leaming’s. They were filed in Pierce County “against the Warden” of the Federal Correctional Institution in Phoenix and the “direct[or] of the Bureau of Prisons,” prosecutors said.
From the prosecution’s filing (italics added):
” . . . during the investigation agents also discovered that Leaming was preparing and using false and fictitious financial instruments. These instruments were typically called “Bonded Promissory Notes,” and purported to be issued by the Federal Reserve or the United States Treasury.”
As to the firearms allegations, Leaming “advanced some type of nonsensical, quasi-legalistic explanation as to why they were not, in fact, firearms,” prosecutors said.
Leaming has been jailed since his November 2011 arrest. Since that time, he has sued President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and a county sheriff in Arkansas, according to court filings.
ASD operator Andy Bowdoin was sentenced in August to 78 months in federal prison. He admitted in May that ASD was a Ponzi scheme. Prosecutors said the scheme gathered at least $119 million.
EDITOR’S NOTE: A passage from a May 2011 email allegedly written by Kenneth Wayne Leaming appears in the story below. The passage, which appears to contain electronic clutter — specifically the string “#39;” — is reproduced verbatim, meaning the string also appears in the court document from which the passage was taken.
An FBI agent assigned to the Tacoma Resident Agency Joint Terrorism Task Force advised a judge last week that Kenneth Wayne Leaming — now jailed at a federal detention facility near Seattle on charges he filed bogus liens against public officials involved in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case — referenced the young children of U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts and their “school.”
The reference appeared in a email that Leaming allegedly sent to David Carroll Stephenson on May 14, 2011. Stephenson, whom the agent described as Leaming’s former business partner in Washington state, is a convicted felon serving a 96-month sentence in federal prison for tax crimes.
“This week I will ‘flood’ the USSC with the habeas, one to each justice and resend the one to the Chief Justice, and maybe one to his kid#39;s school to be given to the parents,” Leaming allegedly wrote. “One way or another he is going to get it in his hands and I#39;ll start working on off duty locations for the remaining justices as well.”
Roberts and his wife have two preteen children.
The email clearly became a source of concern for the FBI.
“In this email,” the FBI agent who sought Leaming’s arrest wrote, “I believe that LEAMING is offering to file documents on Stephenson’s behalf, including sending them to the Chief Justice, via his minor children.”
But the alleged email to Stephenson was hardly the FBI’s only concern about Leaming, who appears to have no law degree but has been depicted in online ads as a practicing attorney. (The ads were removed last year.)
Investigators discovered a paperwork trail that linked Leaming and Stephenson to a purported $10 million lien against Harley Lappin, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and a purported lien for $20 million against Dennis R. Smith, the warden of the Federal Correctional Institution in Phoenix.
As the probe that led to Leaming’s arrest proceeded, agents found bogus liens filed in Pierce County, Wash., against other public officials, including at least five officials involved in the ASD Ponzi case. Liens against Mary Peters, the former U.S. Secretary of Transportation, and Cutler Dawson, president and CEO of Navy Federal Credit Union, also were discovered.
At least some of the bogus papers linked to Leaming were found in July 2011 — during the execution of a search warrant at the Yelm, Wash., home of purported “sovereign citizen” Raymond Leo Jarlik-Bell, according to the FBI.
Whether Jarlik-Bell was a member of ASD is unclear.
The U.S. Secret Service has described ASD as a “criminal enterprise” led by Andy Bowdoin, a 77-year-old recidivist felon and securities huckster. Bowdoin, who was arrested in the Gulf Coast area of Englewood, Fla., in December 2010, operated ASD from the small town of Quincy in northern Florida, near Tallahassee. He has described himself as a “money magnet” and man of God.
The FBI said “one of the specific documents” recovered in the search of Jarlik-Bell’s home sought the staggering sum of $225.4 billion and listed “Kenneth Wayne, sovereign man” as “grantee,” and the public officials as “grantors.”
“Kenneth Wayne” is a name used by Leaming.
Navy Federal, which serves members of the military, is the largest credit union in the world.
So-called “sovereign citizens” have been known to file vexatious liens against public officials and courtroom opponents, including financial institutions. The practice has been described as “paper terrorism” and “mailbox arbitration.” Among other things, it can cause both the lien targets and the government to expend money and resources to defend against the nuisance claims, which can affect the credit histories of the individual targets and the efficiency of the court system.
Named in the liens in in addition to Peters and Dawson were U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer; former U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor; former assistant U.S. Attorney William Cowden; current assistant U.S. Attorney Vasu B. Muthyala; and Roy Dotson, a special agent of the U.S. Secret Service.
Collyer, Taylor, Cowden, Muthyala and Dotson have had roles in the ASD Ponzi case. Why Peters and Dawson were targeted with liens is unclear.
Jarlik-Bell, who has been linked with Leaming to “sovereign citizen” groups known as the “County Rangers” and the “Assemblies on the County,” was arrested in July on tax charges. He was jailed pending trial, according to the FBI complaint against Leaming.
More Alleged Leaming Correspondence
In June 2011, according to the FBI, Leaming sent an email to Stephenson that referenced a letter that had or would be sent to Roberts, America’s top judicial officer. The letter strangely described the chief justice as “FIDUCIARY.” The email followed on the heels of other Leaming emails that suggested Leaming had spent part of the month of May conducting financial research on Roberts and his wife and trying to find a street address through which he could cause Stephenson-related writs to be delivered to the couple’s home — instead of the Supreme Court.
Other Leaming email correspondence in May suggests he sent a “certified,” Stephenson-related letter to the residence of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and was trying to find a home address for Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer — instead of sending Stephenson-related correspondence to the Supreme Court address.
The letter that had or would be sent to Roberts asserted that Stephenson was being “restrained” and “concealed” in a federal prison under a under a “fictitious name.” It further asserted that the government had assigned Stephenson an “inventory control number,” according to the complaint against Leaming.
As the letter proceeded, it painted a picture that Roberts had been part of a conspiracy with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to “evade the habeas corpus process.”
Because Stephenson was in federal custody, his communications were being monitored, according to the complaint against Leaming. In a phone call between Stephenson and Leaming, Leaming spoke about “$10m” allegedly owed to Stephenson by a public official employed by the Bureau of Prisons and suggested that “$20 million” would be sought from a prison warden.
Leaming told Stephenson that the city of Puyallup, Wash., was in receivership because of Leaming’s paperwork maneuverings, according to the complaint against Leaming. (Records show that Leaming filed liens against affecting at least two communities in Washington state, including Puyallup. Records also show that he filed a lien for more than $9 billion against a Franciscan hospital in Lakewood, Wash., and tried to put the facility in involuntary bankruptcy. At the same time, records show that Leaming also sought to put the Washington State Bar Association in involuntary bankruptcy. See this story. See this story.)
During phone conversations with Stephenson, Leaming talked about escalating his paperwork maneuverings against the courts if “they don’t straighten up soon” and the potential need to “have a little liability correspondence with Eric Holder himself.”
Eric Holder is the Attorney General of the United States.
Leaming also told Stephenson that “someone has suggested we go after body odor in the White House,” an apparent veiled reference to President Obama.
Returning to the subject of the courts, Leaming told Stephenson that he would start “working” on the chief judge of U.S. federal courts in the Western District of Washington, according to the complaint against Leaming.
Leaming, according to the complaint, also ventured that “the Rothschilds” were hiding in a “bunker in India” while controlling the central bank of Iraq, according to the complaint against Leaming.
Banking conditions in Iraq are causing the Rothschilds to lose money, and the “inner circle” is “jumping ship,” Leaming allegedly told Stephenson, “just like body odor’s inner circle in the White House.”
Leaming has been under federal surveillance by both the Tacoma Resident Agency Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Seattle Division’s Mobile Surveillance unit since August 2011, according to the complaint. Agents have observed him driving a blue Ford Crown Victoria and visiting mailing spots in Spanaway, Wash., where he lives in an apartment, according to the complaint.
In October 2011, some ASD members received an email attributed to “Keny” — a Leaming nickname — that suggested they file “county recorder” papers against federal officials involved in the ASD case that would identify the officials as “DOJ thieves.”
The email encouraged the members to send a “notary certified copy” of the filings to the home address of Chief Justice Roberts.
At least two notaries public with ties to Leaming have lost their licenses in Washington state, according to records. One of the notaries — Kathryn E. Aschlea — was associated with an enterprise known as FAN NW LTD INC.
The name of FAN NW LTD INC. appears in the criminal complaint against Leaming, and the FBI says a telephone associated with the firm was used on calls between Leaming and Stephenson.
Federal court records in the ASD case in the District of Columbia reference a “Claim by Notary Presentment/Acceptance by Kathryn E. Aschlea.” Collyer denied Aschlea leave to file on June 11, 2010.
Kathryn Aschlea and “Kenneth Wayne” are listed in Washington state as officers of FAN NW LTD INC.
Raymond Leo Jarlik Bell, a 70-year-old purported “sovereign citizen” linked to AdSurfDaily figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming, has been sentenced to 97 months in federal prison for a tax scam.
