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Tag: Robert Clifton Tanner

  • 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: Purported Louisiana ‘Sovereign’ Implicated In Utah False-Liens Case Sentenced To 30 Months In Federal Prison

    americaatrisk4Robert Clifton Tanner, the purported Louisiana “sovereign citizen” implicated in a cross-border plot to file bogus financial judgments against state-court judges and others in Utah, has pleaded guilty to federal charges of mail fraud and has been sentenced to 30 months in prison.

    One of the documents was styled “Petition for Agreement and Harmony in the Nature of a Notice of International Commercial Claim Administrative Remedy,” federal prosecutors in Utah said.

    Tanner is 45. His co-defendant, Maria Melody Fuentes Cecil Mobo, 42, of Spanish Fork, Utah, is scheduled to go on trial Feb. 25. She is charged with four counts of mail fraud.

    Bogus filings by the pair asserted they were owed billions of dollars by judges and others, prosecutors said.

    As part of a plea agreement with the 30-month sentence for Tanner, “other state and federal jurisdictions in Louisiana and Utah had agreed to forgo additional charges against” him.

    The sentence was imposed by U.S. District Judge David Sam.

    UPDATED AT 12:46 P.M. ET JAN. 30

  • ANOTHER FALSE-LIENS CASE: Residents Of Utah, Louisiana Charged With Mail Fraud In Alleged ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Bid To Record Phony Debts Against Judges

    It has happened again — this time in Utah: Maria Melody Fuentes Cecil, 42, of Spanish Fork, and Robert Clifton Tanner, 44, of Mansura, La., have been indicted on charges of mail fraud in an alleged bid “to assert false claims of indebtedness totaling billions of dollars against state court judges and others,” federal prosecutors in Utah said.

    Tanner was arrested last week in Louisiana by “local, state and federal officers,” prosecutors said, adding that Cecil was arrested in Spanish Fork.

    “Cecil and Tanner made it appear as though the victims of their conduct had incurred the multi-billion dollar debts by not responding to pseudo-legal documents mailed to them,” prosecutors said. “Then, acting in concert, Cecil and Tanner filed false and fictitious lien documents with the Utah County Recorder’s Office against the state court judges and others, using the previous fraudulent mailings as justification.”

    Part of the scheme featured an attempt by Cecil to file a “Notice of Expatriation” with the Utah Lieutenant Governor’s Office on March 9, 2012, in an effort to declare herself a “sovereign” citizen,” prosecutors said. “In 2011 and 2012, Cecil was a party in various court proceedings in the Provo City Justice Court, Utah Fourth District Court, and Utah Fourth District Juvenile Court in Utah County.”

    Utah also was part of the staging grounds of Curtis Richmond, a purported “sovereign” being and a figure in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi story. Richmond was sued successfully under the federal racketeering statue in a case that alleged he was part of a “sham” Indian tribe that targeted public officials with vexatious liens, including one for $250 million against a county attorney.

    Richmond later became a figure in the ASD Ponzi case, accusing a federal judge of “TREASON” and federal prosecutors of theft.

    Cecil and Tanner sought $3.2 billion each from targets of their false liens, prosecutors said.

    ASD figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming is jailed near Seattle on charges of filing false liens against at least five public officials involved in the ASD case, including a federal judge, three federal prosecutors and a special agent of the U.S. Secret Service.  He was arrested by the FBI in November.

    The FBI also is investigating the Cecil/Tanner case.