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Tag: sovereign citizens

  • Purported Florida ‘Sovereign Citizen’ And Convicted Felon Charged With Having Gun On Property Of Middle School

    Bruce C. Hicks: Source: Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, via Twitter.
    Bruce C. Hicks: Source: Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, via Twitter.

    Purported Florida “sovereign citizen” Bruce Chalmers Hicks was arrested by the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office after he was seen carrying a sidearm and stepped on the property of Turkey Creek Middle School near Plant City, authorities said. Plant City is situated in the Greater Tampa region.

    Hicks, 46, was arrested Thursday and is being held by the Hillsborough Department of Detention Services. Bond was set at $9,750, according to his booking sheet. He is charged with possession of a firearm on school property, felon in possession of a firearm and the open carrying of a weapon. The sheriff’s office announced the arrest on Twitter.

    The Tampa Bay Times is reporting that Hicks served seven years in prison after his 2004 conviction for molesting a child under the age of 12.

    From the Times (italics added):

    Hicks’ name may be familiar to many local elected officials because, according to court records, he has sued many of them.

    From Brandon Patch (italics added):

    “Upon initial contact with Hicks, he stated there was a $250 fine for every
    fifteen minutes of unlawful detention,” according to the report. “He stated that he is a sovereign citizen and is not subject to the laws of the United States or Hillsborough County. Deputy Diaz asked him if he was carrying a firearm and Hicks stated that he was and repeated that he was not subject to laws.”

    “Sovereign citizens” may have an irrational belief that laws do not apply to them and have been known to engage in “paper terrorism” — the filing of vexatious lawsuits against public officials and litigation opponents. Whether Hicks somehow believed he could make his felonious history go away and regain a right to possess firearms simply by declaring himself “sovereign” was not immediately clear.

    In Washington state, AdSurfDaily story figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming — himself a convicted felon charged with possessing firearms — now is claiming a federal judge owes him 208,000 ounces of fine silver. Like other “sovereigns,” he is claiming unlawful detention.

    Leaming, 57, was convicted earlier this year on the firearms charges. In the same case, he was convicted on charges of filing bogus liens for billions of dollars against public officials involved in the ASD Ponzi case. Leaming’s previous conviction was for holding no license when piloting an aircraft.

    News of the arrest of Hicks came on the same day that the Pensacola News Journal reported that three officers had been cleared of the March shooting death of purported Florida  “sovereign citizen” Jeffrey A. Wright.

    Wright, 55, was wanted on warrants for counterfeiting and pointed a pistol at a SWAT Team, the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office said.

  • Pitchman Says Hong Kong-Based ‘Program’ Is ‘1,000 Percent Better’ Than Profitable Sunrise And Zeek Rewards

    John Schepcoff says he potentially lost more than $193,000 in Profitable Sunrise but that a new "program" is "1,000 percent" better.
    John Schepcoff says he potentially lost more than $193,000 in Profitable Sunrise but that a new “program” is “1,000 percent” better.

    In a bizarre and disturbing video playing on YouTube, a former Profitable Sunrise pitchman claims a new “program” he joined is operating from Hong Kong and is purveyed by an unidentified  “doctor.”

    The purported opportunity is “1,000 percent better” than Profitable Sunrise or Zeek Rewards, according to the video.

    News of the video first was reported on the RealScam.com antiscam forum.

    Pitchman John Schepcoff did not identify the new “program” in the 14:32 video. But he described it as invitation-only. Zeek made similar claims, according to the SEC’s August 2012 Ponzi- and pyramid action against the North Carolina-based firm and accused operator Paul. R. Burks. The SEC described Zeek as a $600 million fraud scheme.

    In April 2013, the agency described Profitable Sunrise as a pyramid scheme that may have gathered tens of millions of dollars, in part through using financial conduits in the Czech Republic, Australia, Panama and China.

    “There’s a litttle bit of a [learning] curve, like also Zeek Rewards in a way, but he made it 1,000 percent better,” Schepcoff said of the new Hong Kong “program.”

    Earlier in the video, Schepcoff claimed the new program was “1,000 percent better” than Profitable Sunrise.

    Schepcoff put $8,225 into the new program, he claimed in the video. He further claimed he’d potentially lost more than $193,500 in Profitable Sunrise but is holding out hope that “Roman Novak” somehow will resurrect the “program.”

    It is unclear whether “Roman Novak” actually exists, according to court filings.

    Among other things, Schepcoff claims in the video that Profitable Sunrise participants need to accept personal responsibility for their losses in the “program” and should not blame individuals such as himself or Profitable Sunrise pitchwoman Nanci Jo Frazer.

    “Stop blaming people, and say, ‘I am responsible,’” Schepcoff coached. Other people who should not be blamed include “Roman Novak,” he noted.

    And Schepcoff claimed he is “so happy” and “really, really happy” he got into the new program. Smiles, however, are absent from his face throughout the video.

    With respect to Profitable Sunrise, Schepcoff described the “program’s” scheme that purportedly permitted “compound[ing]” at a daily interest rate of between 2.15 percent and 2.7 percent as a “no-brainer” for a coach and mentor in finance such as himself.

    “And I teach people about the . . . way how things are done,” he said.

    When he heard about Profitable Sunrise in December 2012, Schepcoff said, “I basically ran to my bank, and I couldn’t get the money in fast enough.”

    Just four months earlier — in August 2012 — the SEC said Zeek duped people into believing they were receiving a legitimate return of about 1.5 percent a day. The Profitable Sunrise “Long Haul” plan purported almost to double Zeek’s purported daily payout.

    “I kept putting wire transfers after wire [transfer]” into Profitable Sunrise,” Schepcoff said, suggesting he took money out of retirement accounts to do so.

    “Greed” that became like a “cancer” controlled his behavior in Profitable Sunrise, he said. Schepcoff did not explain what was driving his behavior in sending funds to the purported Hong Kong “program” purportedly purveyed by the “doctor.”

    The new program apparently relies on a secret strategy designed to prevent links from being shared publicly and is “amazing” in “what it does,” he said. “There’s people — I can tell you this — that are bringing out only in five months over [$]40,000.”

    One person, according Schepcoff, told him that he’d taken out “over [$]200,000” from the new program in a single day.

    Some HYIP “programs” are pitched by “sovereign citizens” and political extremists who divine a construction by which participants are “free” to spend their money as they see fit and that specific word combinations insulate purveyors from any liability if a “program” collapses or becomes the subject of an action by law enforcement.

    HYIP scams typically are promoted on social-media sites such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, FINRA said in a 2010 warning.

  • Purported ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Leads Utah Troopers On Freeway Chase And Is Arrested

    In a case reminiscent of the bizzare tale of Jennifer Melisa Herring in North Carolina, a Utah woman and purported “sovereign citizen” has been charged with fleeing police in an automobile.

    Lisa Ann Sovereen, 44, refused to pull over and led the Utah Highway Patrol on a high-speed chase on an Interstate highway, KSL.com reports.

    Sovereen explained that she was “not required to pull over and that police had stolen her previous vehicle and taken her blood,” the station reports.

    Jail records in Salt Lake County list the Sovereen name as an alias used by Lisa Ann Bluth.

    See the police dash-cam video . . .

  • WTOL To Air Profitable Sunrise Report Titled ‘Holy Rip Off’

    From The WTOL teaser.
    From The WTOL teaser.

    EDITOR’S NOTE: GlimDropper, an administrator at the RealScam.com antiscam forum, gave PP Blog readers a heads-up on the WTOL report yesterday . . .

    WTOL, the CBS affiliate in Toledo, Ohio, says it will air a report Thursday (April 25) at 11 p.m. EDT titled “Holy Rip Off.”

    A teaser for the report shows photos of Profitable Sunrise pitchwoman Nanci Jo Frazer. Frazer’s NJF Global Group is referenced in a New Zealand fraud warning on the Profitable Sunrise “program” and also within the body of a March 14 notice issued by the Ohio Department of Commerce Division of Securities. Frazer and NJF Global Group also are referenced in the body of a March 14 cease-and-desist order issued by the Minnesota Department of Commerce.

    Numerous securities regulators have described Profitable Sunrise as a form of affinity fraud targeted at people of faith. At least 35 agencies in the United States and Canada have issued cease-and-desist orders or Investor Alerts against the HYIP “program,” which had a presence on infamous Ponzi forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup.

    The website of Profitable Sunrise has been missing since at least March 14. On April 1 — the day after Easter Sunday and April Fools Day — the “program” failed to make good on promised payouts from the bizarrely named “Long Haul” plan. The “Long Haul” was purported to pay interest of 2.7 percent a day. Its claims were similar to other collapsed schemes promoted on the Ponzi boards.

    On Dec. 30, the PP Blog reported that Profitable Sunrise appeared to be relying on appeals to faith in a bid to attract investors in the wake of the August 2012 collapse of the Zeek Rewards “program.” Zeek, which allegedly planted the seed it paid interest of 1.5 percent a day, also had a presence on the Ponzi boards. In August, the SEC described Zeek as a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid fraud.

    Earlier this month, the SEC described Profitable Sunrise as a pyramid scheme that had collected an unspecified sum believed to be in the tens of millions of dollars.

    RealScam.com, an antifraud forum recently targeted in a DDoS attack, has been publishing information on Profitable Sunrise since at least Dec. 1.

    The PP Blog learned last month that at least one apologist for the NJF Global Group has relied on purported “research” by a notorious cyberstalker known as “MoneyMakingBrain” in an apparent bid to discredit critics of the “program.”

    MoneyMakingBrain emerged in 2012 as an apologist for the JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid “program” purportedly operated by Frederick Mann. JSS/JBP purported to pay 2 percent a day. MoneyMakingBrain claimed he’d defend Mann “so help me God.”

    JSS/JBP, which appears to have morphed into secondary and tertiary scams (ProfitClicking and ClickPaid) after the August collapse of Zeek, may have ties to the “sovereign citizens” movement. Mann has compared the U.S. government to the Mafia, claiming that government employees were part of “a criminal gang of robbers, thieves, murderers, liars, imposters.”

    Profitable Sunrise also may have ties to the “sovereign citizens” movement.

    Some “sovereign citizens” have an irrational belief that laws do not apply to them. It is known that the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme in 2008 also had ties to “sovereign citizens,” including Kenneth Wayne Leaming. Leaming, a resident of Washington state, was convicted earlier this year of filing false liens for billions of dollars against public officials who had a role in the prosecution of the ASD Ponzi scheme.

    ASD operated from Florida, planting the seed it paid a return of 1 percent a day. ASD President Andy Bowdoin — now serving a 78-month prison term — also was associated with a 1-percent-a-day scam known as AdViewGlobal. AVG bizarrely claimed in 2009 that it enjoyed the protections of the U.S. and Florida constitutions while purportedly operating from Uruguay. The scam collapsed during the summer of 2009 — but not before issuing threats to members and critics.

    In May 2009, AVG bizarrely announced it had secured the services of an offshore facilitator. The announcement was made on the same day President Obama announced a crackdown on offshore scams.

    Obama later was pilloried in an ad for a “program” known as MPB Today. MPB’s operator later was charged in Florida with racketeering.

    “Sovereigns” are infamous for drafting others into scams, including people who do not recognize they are being drafted into illegal pursuits.

    The teaser for the WTOL report is below . . .

  • Purported Alabama ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Convicted Of Trying To Pay Off Mortgage With Bogus Note For $10 Million

    breakingnews72A 64-year-old Alabama man who tried to pay off his mortgage by mailing a bogus “bonded promissory note” for $10 million to a mortgage-servicing company has been convicted of fraud, the office of U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance of the Northern District of Alabama said.

    Donald Joe Barber of Pinson faces up to 25 years in federal prison when sentenced July 31 by U.S. District Judge Inge P. Johnson.

    “Self-appointed ‘sovereign citizens’ preach an extremist, anti-government ideology to their followers and teach a myth about American history that is untrue,” Vance said. “They often use this mythical ideology to justify crime. Sovereign citizens may disavow the authority of the U.S. government, but it exists and my office will use it to prosecute those who break the law.”

    Barber “presented the fraudulent $10 million note as if it were a valid financial instrument drawn on a secret U.S. government account,” prosecutors said.

    His note, they said, constituted a “fictitious financial instrument.”

    Some “sovereign citizens” cling to a bizarre theory known as “redemption,” which holds in part that the U.S. government created secret accounts for citizens decades ago and that the accounts can be accessed through the filing of precise paperwork to retire debts.

    “All citizens should be wary of individuals or groups that claim they can inform you on secret bank accounts, and should report that activity to the FBI,” said Richard D. Schwein Jr., FBI special agent in charge.

  • 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.”

  • Judge Says Evidence Shows That AdSurfDaily Figure And Purported ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Kenneth Wayne Leaming Filed $225 Billion Bogus Lien And Was ‘Helping’ ASD Members Unhappy With Ponzi Prosecution

    Kenneth Wayne Leaming
    Kenneth Wayne Leaming

    UPDATED 12:46 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) The evidence against AdSurfDaily figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming was “overwhelming” and led to the purported “sovereign citizen’s” conviction on three counts of retaliating against a federal official by filing false claims, one count of concealing a person from arrest and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, a federal judge wrote in court filings.

    While making a veiled reference to the ASD Ponzi case brought by the U.S. Secret Service in 2008 in the District of Columbia, U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton of the Western District of Washington wrote in an order dated March 14 that evidence showed Leaming “admitted to filing liens against a group of federal officials for absurd sums, $225 billion in one case.”

    “The only link any of these officials had to each other was their participation in the prosecution of a Ponzi scheme on the east coast,” Leighton wrote. “The evidence demonstrated that Defendant was ‘helping,’ as he put it, certain individuals who were aggrieved by the prosecution of the Ponzi scheme.”

    Leighton’s order did not identify the individuals Leaming was said to he helping. The order was issued in response to a bid by Leaming, 57, to be acquitted post-verdict amid assertions the evidence against him was insufficient to sustain the convictions.

    But Leaming, according to the order, “admitted on the stand that he knowingly possessed the firearms in question because he wanted to challenge the law at the Supreme Court.”

    And, Leighton wrote, the evidence “overwhelmingly supported Defendant’s conviction of concealing a person from arrest. The Government established that Defendant knew certain individuals were sought in relation to a postal-scam, that Defendant allowed them to stay in his home, helped them trade cars, and otherwise supported them.”

    Those individuals have been identified in court filings as onetime fugitives Timothy Shawn Donavan and Sharon Jeannette Henningsen of Arkansas. They were found with Leaming in Washington state in November 2011. Donavan and Henningsen later were convicted of mail fraud in a home-business caper that gathered more than $2 million, prosecutors said.

    ASD was a $119 million Ponzi scheme opearting from Florida over the Internet. ASD’s business model was similar to the model of the Zeek Rewards “program,” which the SEC described in August 2012 as a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme operating from North Carolina.

    ASD and Zeek are known to have had members in common. Some ASD members said that Leaming was providing them counsel, despite the fact he is not an attorney.

    The PP Blog reported in November 2010 that Cornell University Law School, Justia.com and Oyez.org removed online profiles of Leaming. The sites previously had listed Leaming as an attorney who practiced law and advertised a fee structure of up to $250 an hour from Spanaway, Wash.

    Leaming was arrested by an FBI terrorism task force a year later in Spanaway.

    Also see Nov. 13, 2010, PP Blog report on a disturbing email some ASD members received that asserted they could be sued for filing a remissions claim in the ASD Ponzi case.

    In October 2011, the PP Blog reported than some ASD members had received an email that encouraged them to file documents at the “county” level and “name” federal officials as “thieves.”

    Court filings suggest that Leaming already was under investigation by the FBI when some ASD members were trumpeting him as the answer to their problems.

  • BULLETIN: Purported ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Shot And Killed In Florida After Pointing Pistol At SWAT Team Members, Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office Says

    americaatrisk4BULLETIN: Jeffrey Allen Wright, a purported “sovereign citizen” wanted on arrest warrants for counterfeiting, was shot and killed March 8 after pointing a pistol at a Sheriff’s SWAT Team in Navarre, Fla., the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office said.

    Wright, 55, had previous clashes with the Sheriff’s Office, the agency said.

    From a statement by the Sheriff’s Office (Italics added):

    The warrants for Wright’s arrest were for five counts of Counterfeiting, and five counts of Passing a Counterfeit Bill (both 3rd degree felonies). Wright has had confrontations in the past with the Sheriff’s Office, claiming that he is a “Sovereign Citizen” and denounced his United States Citizenship.

    Wright has also told the Sheriff’s Office that he does not acknowledge State Laws and that he doesn’t have to comply with law enforcement because their requests are “unlawful”. Due to Wright’s perception of law enforcement, numerous deputies went to his residence to facilitate the arrest. When Wright was encountered by deputies, Wright produced a black object from his pocket, appearing to be a firearm, and concealed it behind his back. Wright then fled into the garage area and went up the stairs to the second floor. Wright then began to barricade the stairway so that deputies could not approach.

    Wright then discharged a firearm one time. Wright made statements that he was “not a U.S. citizen, but a sovereign citizen, and that he would not be a servant of the king”. Wright also stated that if any deputies came up the stairwell, they would “not come back down”. Wright also stated that if deputies “if you ever want to see your families again, you will leave”.

    Deputies withdrew from the immediate area and called a SWAT Team and negotiators, the Sheriff’s Office said.

    “Wright refused to continue conversing with negotiators, and continued to state that deputies would have to ‘come up and get me,’” the agency said. “As the situation progressed, and due to Wright being armed, the SWAT team deployed gas into the second story of the garage. Wright was continuously given commands to come out, unarmed; however Wright would continue to yell ‘come and get me.’

    Matters then turned even worse, the agency said.

    “Wright then began to break out windows with a semi-automatic pistol,” the Sheriff’s Office said. “Wright then went to the top of the stairwell and began to remove the items he had used to barricade the entrance. Wright sat down at the top of the stairs, holding a handgun. While refusing to obey lawful commands to surrender, Wright raised the pistol and pointed it directly at SWAT team members at the bottom of the stairwell. Due to there being a great danger of being shot, three SWAT deputies simultaneously discharged their firearms at Wright.”

    The purported “sovereign” was pronounced dead at the scene.

    As is typical in officer-involved shootings, the three deputies have been placed on paid administrative leave, the agency said.

    The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) is conducting an investigation, the sheriff’s office said.

  • MAXIMUM IRONY? Man Tells British Newspaper That He Used Prepaid Mastercard From Banners Broker At ATM — And Received Counterfeit £20 Note

    recommendedreading1UPDATED AT 10:40 A.M. ET (U.S.A.) A member of the “Banners Broker” program tells The Bristol Post that he used a prepaid Banners Broker MasterCard at a NatWest ATM to withdraw £600 and that a counterfeit £20 note was in the stack of cash dispensed by the machine.

    The plan, Paul Scoplin reportedly told the paper, was to withdraw the cash at NatWest and then to deposit it into an HSBC account — but the plan didn’t go swimmingly.

    “I took the cash over to HSBC straight away and they flagged up one of the notes,” he reportedly told the paper.

    NatWest is investigating the note, according to The Post.

    Banners Broker is a “program” that gained a head of steam in part from ceaseless promotions on Ponzi-scheme boards such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup. Members are complaining about not getting paid and suggesting that Banners Broker is making selective payouts to sustain a fraud scheme.

    Whether Scoplin’s reported claim that counterfeit currency somehow made its way into a NatWest machine would result in additional scrutiny of the Banners Broker “program” was not immediately clear.

    In June 2012, the PP Blog reported that a site purportedly selling “customers” to members of the Zeek Rewards “program” also was pushing traffic to Banners Broker and JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, the bizarre, 730-percent-a-year “program” purportedly operated by Frederick Mann.

    JSS/JBP may have ties to the “sovereign citizens” movement.

    In August 2012, the SEC described Zeek as a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme operating online. JSS/JBP then morphed into a “program” known as “ProfitClicking,” amid reports of the sudden retirement of Mann. But now Mann, a former pitchman for the AdSurfDaily online Ponzi scheme, is back — this time as a pitchman for a “program” known as “ClickPaid.”

    When Mann spoke during a recent ClickPaid conference call, the VOX identifier displayed the name “J. J. Ulrich” when Mann was speaking. Ulrich was associated with ProfitClicking, which has led to questions about whether Mann and Ulrich simply were extending an online fraud that started with JSS/JBP.

    The presence of the various “programs” on forums linked to Ponzi schemes has led to questions about whether banks and payment processors are coming into possession of funds tainted by fraud. The “programs” are known to have promoters in common.

  • URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: AdSurfDaily Figure And Purported ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Kenneth Wayne Leaming Found Guilty Of Filing False Liens, Possessing Weapons Illegally — And More

    Kenneth Wayne Leaming
    Kenneth Wayne Leaming

    URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: AdSurfDaily figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming has been found guilty in the Western District of Washington of filing false liens against public officials, harboring fugitives and being a felon in possession of firearms, federal prosecutors said tonight.

    Leaming associate David Carroll Stephenson also was found guilty of filing false liens.

    The PP Blog will have a full report when more information becomes available. The case was prosecuted by the office of U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan.

  • UPDATE: Charles Daniel Koss, Purported Missouri ‘Sovereign Citizen,’ Convicted In ‘Redemption’ Swindle Against Social Security

    recommendedreading1Charles Daniel Koss, a 63-year-old purported “sovereign citizen” from Independence, Mo., faces up to 61 years in federal prison after being convicted in a “redemption” scam targeted at Social Security.

    Koss was convicted of two counts of theft of government money, one count of Social Security disability fraud, one count of mail fraud and one count of transmitting a false negotiable instrument with the intent to defraud the government, prosecutors said. The false negotiable instrument was a purported “Registered Private Money Order” mailed to the Social Security Administration purportedly to repay $212,768 Koss owed the agency after it was determined he’d defrauded Social Security and had received disability payments to which he was not entitled between September 1994 and January 2010.

    From the office of U.S. Attorney Tammy Dickinson of the Western District of Missouri (italics added):

    Koss told federal agents in interviews during the investigation that he has studied redemption theory. Redemption theory involves bogus claims that when the United States government abandoned the gold standard in 1933, it pledged its citizens as collateral so it could borrow money. The movement also asserts that common citizens can gain access to funds in secret accounts using obscure procedures and regulations. According to the theory, the government created a fictitious person (or “straw man”) corresponding to each newborn citizen and each citizen has an alleged secret trust account with the United States Treasury. The theory also claims that through obscure procedures under the Uniform Commercial Code, a citizen can “reclaim” the “straw man” and write negotiable instruments against its accounts. Its adherents sometimes call themselves “sovereign citizens.” The “sovereign citizen” movement is a loosely organized collection of groups and individuals who have adopted anarchist ideology. Its adherents believe that virtually all existing government in the United States is illegitimate and they seek to “restore” an idealized, minimalist government that never actually existed.

    And, Dickinson’s office added, “Redemption theory and sovereign citizen beliefs are totally without merit and they have no basis in law or fact. Individuals often use these ideas to further various fraudulent schemes.”

    Even as he was receiving disability payments, prosecutors said, Koss worked full time at a business known as Embassy Mortgage. He also led an active life-style, including “bowling, golfing, horseshoes, boating, activities at his lake house and frequent visits to Ameristar Casino, where he gambled a total of $260,000 during this time.”

    Koss “failed to report any change in his health condition or any income from Embassy Mortgage to the Social Security Administration,” prosecutors said.