Banks, a convicted bank robber, is considered “armed and dangerous,” the FBI said.
Also considered armed and dangerous is Kenneth Conley, who apparently escaped with Banks this morning. Conley, too, is a bank robber, the FBI said. He is described as “male/white, age 38, 6’0” tall, 185 pounds.”
Banks is described as “male/black, age 37, 5’8” tall, 160 pounds,” the FBI said.
The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Banks was convicted just last week and told a federal judge, “I’ll be seeking retribution as well as damages.”
Two convicted bank robbers escaped from the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in the Loop this morning by tying bedsheets together and shimmying down at least 15 stories to the ground below, officials say.
Kenneth Conley: source: FBI.
A “widespread manhunt” is under way, the FBI said.
Banks and Conley are “believed to be traveling together” and “were reportedly last seen earlier this morning in the Tinley Park area, the FBI said.
They are “both convicted bank robbers” and “should be considered armed and dangerous,” the FBI said.
“If you see them, contact local law enforcement or the Chicago Field Office of the FBI at 312-421-6700,” the FBI said.
Jennifer Herring. Source: Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office.
UPDATED 2:56 A.M. ET (DEC. 16, U.S.A.) A purported “sovereign citizen” wanted for failure to appear in court at an impaired-driving proceeding led sheriff’s deputies on a 15-minute chase, the Brunswick County (N.C.) Sheriff’s Office said.
Jennifer Melisa Herring, 37, of Myrtle Beach S.C., now has been charged with Driving While Impaired, Felony Fleeing to Elude Arrest, Driving While License Revoked, Careless and Reckless Driving and Driving Left of Center.
“During the pursuit, the driver called 911 and stated there was no emergency, and she would pull over for $300,000,” the sheriff’s office said.
WECT.com has a video report, along with details of the 911 call.
From the station’s website (italics added):
Herring repeatedly told the 911 operator that the officers trying to pull her over were creating a “false sense of emergency” and that she wasn’t going to stop driving because she wasn’t speeding.
“No, I’m not pulling over because pulling over is voluntary I’m not doing nothing wrong,” Herring told 911. “Are you ready to pay the $300,000? That’s all I want to know. If you want to pay the $300,000 then I’ll pull over. That’s my offer – $300,000. That’s my offer, I’m asking you to accept it.”
An apparent California “sovereign citizen” arrested on Nov. 6 escaped through a 9-inch crack in a holding cell at the Glendora Police Department and, while making off, stole a “beanie” from a dollar store to disguise his appearance by concealing his overflow hairdo, authorities told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.
Here’s now the paper put it in its lede yesterday on the Thanksgiving Eve rearrest of 24-year-old Arthur Guerrero (italics added):
Police Wednesday caught up with the big-haired suspect who escaped through a small gap in the station’s booking cage earlier this month.
On Nov. 6, Guerrero was arrested on charges of having fraudulent license plates on his vehicle and refusing to identify himself, the newspaper reported.
After he apparently wormed his way through the crack in the holding cell, he allegedly stole food from a grocery store and also shoplifted his getaway disguise from the dollar store, the paper reported.
Citing police, Patch.com identified Jose Rosas, who goes by the name of Emmanuel “Manny” Freeman, as the other man.
“Rosas is reportedly an L.A. Occupy activist and is wanted for obstructing an officer during a L.A. Occupy protest in Long Beach, said [Lt. Brian] Summers” of the Glendora police, Patch.com reported.
Christopher Bull. Source: Osceola County Sheriff’s Office.
Four purported “sovereign citizens” — three with Florida addresses and one with a North Carolina address — were arrested yesterday after investigators received reports of counterfeit checks being passed at local businesses, the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office said.
A search of a room at the Red Roof Inn on Kyngs Heath Road in Kissimmee led to the discovery of “multiple computers, printers, scanners and other materials consistent with manufacturing counterfeit checks,” the sheriff’s office said.
Arrested were Darryl Causby, 50, of Orlando; Drew Causby, 23, of Nebo, N.C.; Christopher Bull, 34, of Kissimmee; and Annette Bruce, 45, of Haines City.
The suspects had been staying at the Red Roof Inn, and a search also turned up “written materials regarding the Sovereign Citizen Movement,” the sheriff’s office said.
WFTV.com said reporter Melonie Holt called all four suspects at the jail — and that Bull called back.
From WFTV (italics added):
Bull went on to explain that he was acting as a banking institution when he attempted two bank drafts at a local Amscot. The banking institution listed on the check was the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, which doesn’t do business with individual account holders. Bull said his signature on the check made it legal tender.
Part of the first page of the indictment against purported “sovereign citizen” Cherron Marie Phillips. Source: Screen shot of document published by the Chicago Tribune.
During his days at the Justice Department, Patrick J. Fitzgerald perhaps was America’s most famous prosecutor. When he wasn’t prosecuting terrorism cases in New York (United States v. Usama bin Laden, et al.), he was prosecuting Mafia figures (United States v. John Gambino).
Fitzgerald, now 51 and in private practice, has drawn praise and criticism for his actions against politicians and public officials from both sides of the aisle. From Chicago, he was involved in the successful prosecution of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, in an alleged conspiracy to sell the U.S. Senate seat of Barack Obama, who’d been elected President of the United States in 2008.
And Fitzgerald also presided over the successful prosecution of Scooter Libby, a fixture in the Republican administration of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. It was an exceptionally famous “CIA leaks” case, the underpinnings of which were known as “The Plame Affair,” a sort of Watergate of the early 2000s.
Given Fitzgerald’s participation in high-profile cases against international rogues and terrorists, organized-crime figures and U.S. domestic political elites on both sides of the aisle, it’s easy to forget he also prosecuted or supervised the prosecution of ordinary cases. One such case involved a defendant by the name of Devon Phillips, who pleaded guilty to drug charges four years ago, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Cherron Marie Phillips, Phillips’ sister and a purported “sovereign citizen,” now has been charged with filing false liens that seek $100 billion each from 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.
Fitzgerald and the other federal officials are not identified in the Cherron Phillips indictment, but the indictment charges a bogus lien for $100 billion was filed by Phillips in Chicago against a “United States Attorney” on March 14, 2011. The famed prosecutor was Chicago’s U.S. Attorney (the Northern District of Illinois) on that date.
If Phillips were to get her way, every man, woman and child in the United States would owe her brother $3,821.65, a figure arrived at by dividing $1.2 trillion — the sought-after sum — by 314 million, the approximate U.S. population.
The liens were filed in the “public record of the Cook County Recorder of Deeds,” according to the indictment.
Based on the content of the indictment and other records, it appears as though the office of U.S. Attorney Stephen R. Wigginton of the Southern District of Illinois is prosecuting the case against Phillips to remove any questions about whether she could be treated fairly by prosecutors in the Northern District of Illinois. Fitzgerald once led the Northern District and, as noted above, he and an assistant U.S. Attorney from that office allegedly were targeted in the liens caper.
The indictment did not say whether taxpayers will incur additional expenses because of the need for a prosecutor in a different district to handle the case. There have been instances in other states in which both federal judges and federal prosecutors have recused themselves because of actions brought by purported “sovereigns.” Judges from other districts and even other states effectively have been flown in to preside over such matters, invariably because the officials targeted in liens capers become potential witnesses.
This is not the American Flag; it is the flag on display at the October meeting of the purported California Assembly of the Republic for the united States of America. Source: From KGO-TV video.
Tim Turner, the purported “President” of the “Republic for the united States of America,” is in jail — charged with trying to pay his taxes with “a fictitious $300 million bond and to have assisted others in attempting to pay their taxes with fictitious bonds purporting to be worth amounts ranging from $10 million to $100 billion,” the U.S. Department of Justice said in September.
In October, KGO-TV (ABC7/San Francisco) took a camera to a meeting of the purported California Assembly of the Republic for the united States of America. The meeting was held in Visalia. An I-Team report by the station aired yesterday. It included video taken at the meeting and elsewhere.
Some attendees of the Visalia meeting pledged allegiance to a flag other than the American Flag and recited an “oath of citizenship” to a country other than the United States, the station reported.
Purported citizenship papers were symbolically stamped with a thumbprint in red ink to mimic a “blood oath,” the station reported.
From the KGO-TV report (italics added):
The group believes an act of Congress in 1871 made the U.S. government a private, for-profit corporation. Members say after that, Congress changed its oath of office and that means the republic can take over.
Purported “sovereign citizen” Patrick Cody Morgan has been convicted of conspiracy and nine counts of bank fraud, prosecutors in the Southern District of Texas said.
Morgan, 45, resides in Alvin. His trial lasted two days, and a jury returned the verdicts after deliberating for less than three hours, prosecutors said.
The Morgan scam involved repeated bids to scam residential mortgage lenders and FDIC-insured banks between 2004 and 2007, prosecutors said.
As part of a real-estate loans scam, “Morgan would locate condominium units in the Houston area from a builder or developer,” prosecutors said.
After that, he “set up trust accounts with names similar to the condominiums” and coconspirators recruited straw buyers to get bank loans, prosecutors said.
The properties then ended up in foreclosure, causing losses of more than $20 million, prosecutors said.
From a statement by the office of U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson (italics added):
Morgan chose to represent himself at trial, but the court appointed counsel to be available if Morgan had questions or needed assistance. Morgan responded to inquiries by the judge, throughout various hearings, with arguments that he was not subject to the jurisdiction or laws of the United States. Testimony in trial revealed these actions are part of the sovereign citizen movement.?
Five Houston residents previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the scheme: John Elias, 44; Reginald Anderson, 41; Viktor Ly, 43; Minh Vu, 41; and Christopher Pearson, 34. They are scheduled to be sentenced in January.
Morgan’s sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 4, with U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes presiding. Morgan potentially faces decades in prison.
Though initially freed on bond after he was charged, Morgan’s pretrial release was revoked “after the court found he had violated a condition of his release by failing to appear for his court setting,” prosecutors said.
UPDATED 3:37 P.M. AND 3:49 P.M. EDT (OCT. 25, USA)
3:37 P.M. UPDATE: The Atlanta Journal Constitution is reporting that Eliyshuwa Yisrael and two other purported “sovereign citizens” were acquitted today. 3:49 P.M. UPDATE: WSBTV.com also is reporting today’s acquittal.
Our earlier story is below . . .
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In some areas of the United States, including Greater Atlanta, purported “sovereign citizens” allegedly have engaged in deed swindles and have become squatters in properties they don’t own.
Action News 2 (WSBTV.com) is reporting that purported “sovereign citizen” Eliyshuwa Yisrael claims he created no victims when he allegedly took possession of a $13 million shopping mall.
Separately, 11Alive.com is reporting that a Craigslist ad led to a foreclosed Georgia home being “ransacked, ravaged, raked over.”
A family that placed the ad wanted to give away items outside, the station reported. But the wording of the ad apparently triggered confusion, and people broke into the home before the giveaway started and removed clothes, shoes and family keepsakes.
Screen shot: Part of the Leaming/Stephenson complaint demanding gold and silver.
After he was charged with filing false liens and other crimes and jailed near Seattle, AdSurfDaily story figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming apparently thought it prudent to sue President Obama and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
Leaming, 56, advanced a theory that Obama was not born in the United States, was not eligible to be President and had appointed Holder unlawfully.
It therefore followed, according to Leaming and co-plaintiff and former business colleague David Carroll Stephenson, that Holder was “Personating [sic] the Attorney General of the United States” and could not lawfully appoint or delegate authority to “Any United States Attorney.”
And because Holder had oversight responsibility over the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of Washington that had brought the criminal charges against Leaming and Stephenson after an FBI probe, the duo apparently surmised, it followed that the prosecution was unlawful and should be declared “VOID For FRAUD” because the U.S. Attorney also is “personating” [sic] a federal officer.
In their June lawsuit, Leaming and Stephenson demanded compensation in “gold” and “silver” for each day they allegedly were held unlawfully. Over time, the docket of the case swelled to more than 30 entries.
On Oct. 11, however, U.S. District Judge Robert S. Lasnik dismissed the Leaming/Stephenson lawsuit “for failure to identify any viable claim for relief.”
The judge also ordered “all pending motions” stricken as moot.
Leaming and Stephenson remain jailed near Seattle.
He is charged with filing false liens against at least five federal officials involved in the prosecution of the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme, which the U.S. Secret Service described as a fraud operated by Andy Bowdoin that had gathered at least $119 million.
Bowdoin, 77, was sentenced in August to 78 months in federal prison.
Leaming initially was arrested by the FBI in November 2011. He was indicted in January 2012 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.
Stephenson, a tax fraudster already jailed when Leaming was arrested and jailed, worked with Leaming to file false liens against U.S. prison officials, prosecutors said.
See Nov. 27, 2011, PP Blog story that outlines FBI allegations that Leaming was discussing a way to serve Stepenson-related papers on U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts through the school attended by his children, who are minors.
Roberts is the top judicial officer in the United States.
EDITOR’S NOTE: In August 2011, the FBI warned of debt-elimination schemes advanced by purported “sovereign citizens.” The story below outlines a “bonded promissory notes” scheme advanced in Missouri by Denny Ray Hardin. It is worth noting that AdSurfDaily figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming is jailed near Seattle awaiting trial in a case that alleges he issued a “bonded promissory note” and filed false liens against public officials.
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The 10-year prison sentence of a purported “sovereign citizen” who hatched a scheme in which bogus financial products were sold to customers in a bid to eliminate their debts has been upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit.
Denny Ray Hardin, 53, of Kansas City, Mo., was convicted in September 2011 of 11 counts of creating fictitious obligations and 10 counts of mail fraud.
The circumstances that led to Hardin’s arrest and trial were just plain bizarre. Hardin, according to prosecutors, divined a a construction by which he was a private banker authorized to issue “bonded promissory notes” (BPNs) backed by the government.
Customers were told they could use Hardin’s manufactured notes to wipe out their debts, and Hardin charged $100 or more for the notes, prosecutors said.
Hardin called his purported bank “The Private Bank of Denny Ray Hardin,” and he operated it from his residence, prosecutors said. The scheme in part operated online, but also through the mails.
“Hardin defrauded customers by selling them BPNs with the false promise that these fictitious instruments can discharge debts,” prosecutors said. “Hardin defrauded creditors by presenting them with worthless BPNs.”
U.S. District Judge Gary A. Fenner sentenced Hardin to 10 years. An appeal followed.
In upholding the sentence, a three-judge appeals panel from the 8th Circuit noted that Fenner could have sentenced Hardin to nearly 34 years in prison but used his discretion under the circumstances of the case to depart downward, ordering a 10-year-sentence and three years’ supervised probation after Hardin’s release.
Records in the case show that Hardin, in October 2010, was ordered “committed to the custody of the United States Attorney General for hospitalization and treatment” after he raised issues of his own competency to stand trial.
In May 2011, Hardin was ruled competent to stand trial.
At a pretrial conference in August 2011, prosecutors announced they had at least 30 witnesses and 487 trial exhibits.
Hardin, who had decided to represent himself and had been appointed stand-by counsel, “refused to participate in the proceeding and objected to the Court’s jurisdiction, according to a memo by the presiding magistrate judge. (Read memo at Leagle.com).
Among other things, the panel rejected as “meritless” Hardin’s claims that the district court had no jurisdiction over him.
These are among the findings of the appeals panel (italics/bolding added):
Witness testimony and documentary evidence established that (1) Hardin produced fictitious financial instruments that he called “bonded promissory notes” and (2) Hardin claimed that these notes had monetary value to discharge debt and were authorized by the United States Department of Treasury. Hardin typically sold the bogus notes for a fee and then mailed them to financial institutions on behalf of the purchaser with the stated purpose of extinguishing that purchaser’s debt, including mortgage debt. Hardin continued this course of action even after he was advised about the illegality of his conduct. See 18 U.S.C. § 514(a) (producing fictitious obligations with intent to defraud), § 1341 (using mail in a scheme to defraud).
At sentencing, the panel recounted, “additional evidence was introduced to show that Hardin sold the fictitious instruments to over 50 customers and attempted to extinguish over $100 million worth of debt . . .”
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.
