Sovereign Citizen Apologizes After Trillion-Dollar 'Paper Terrorism' Scheme

[RamboLiberal]

A sovereign citizen in upstate New York apologized for harassing government officials with "paper terrorism," which resulted in a sentence of 21 months in federal prison for mail fraud.

Ed Parenteau was sentenced last week and ordered to pay about $8,000 to Ulster County, after he, along with two other sovereign citizens, was convicted of mail fraud after filing fake indictments and sending fake bills, totaling $1.24 trillion, to government officials. "I have learned my lesson and I will never do anything like this again," he told District Judge Thomas McAvoy Friday.

Parenteau, Jeffrey Burfeindt, and Richard Ulloa were indicted in July of last year for a scheme to allegedly extort money from Ulster County, New York, and several public employees, including police officers, an assistant county prosecutor, and a town justice. Executives of a local bank were also targeted.

The three identify themselves as sovereign citizens, a loosely organized group that believes almost all forms of government are illegitimate, and refuses to follow laws. Some sovereign citizens have responded with violence when confronted by law enforcement, but oftentimes members use so-called "paper terrorism" instead. This usually involves filing liens against the personal assets of law enforcement officials or judges who sovereign citizens come into contact with, which effectively ruins their credit.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/sovereign_citizen_apolgizes_after_trillion-dollar.php?ref=fpb

60 Minutes did an excellent segment on these whackos last night.


(CBS News)
This is a story about a group of Americans you've likely never heard of: they're called "sovereign citizens." Many don't pay taxes, carry a driver's license or hold a Social Security card. They have little regard for the police or the courts, and some have become violent.

The FBI lists them among the nation's top domestic terror threats.

By some estimates, there are as many as 300,000 sovereign citizens in the U.S. And with the sluggish economy and mortgage mess, their ranks are growing.

It's just the kind of movement that attracted people like Jerry Kane. A divorced, out-of-work truck driver from Ohio, Kane became a sovereign citizen in 2003 when he lost his house to foreclosure. To earn a living, he and his son began crisscrossing the country peddling a debt reduction scam.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/05/15/60minutes/main20062666.shtml#ixzz1MYSCeqag

[jpak]

1. Sovereign Citizens, Free Staters and Teabaggers = RW domestic terrorists

yup

[gratuitous]

5. They're not terrorists, silly!

They're white and they didn't torch an SUV (which would make them "eco-terrorists," the only kind of terrorist a white person can be in the U.S.).

[Mnemosyne]

2. I had a one at my house yesterday. He wanted to buy my very rural property to live

off the grid! Did not say a single racist or bigoted thing, but he sure got an earful of my thoughts on bigots and racists as a warning about the area! I insulted them over and over again to this guy! He must have wanted to puke!

I didn't sell him my land...

[Historic NY]

3. He'd give you sovereign money...these guys are paper terrorists.

[Mnemosyne]

4. Oh yeah, he had cash. It really creeped me out when I realized what he stands for afterwards.

It was this OP that alerted me. He kept mentioning it as a phrase, not as a group, the article was an epiphany. feel sorry for the kids, always the ones that suffer for these assholes.