Comments on: ‘Sovereign Citizens’ Guru Sentenced to Nearly Five Years in Scam

By: CM

CM — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 15:07:03 +0000

“Taking about $96,000 in fees between them, they laundered $1.3 trillion for undercover FBI agents who told them the money came from stolen and forged bank checks.”

Um, there would appear to be a misplaced decimal point somewhere. Or else these guys somehow succeeded in laundering about 9 percent of the nation’s 2010 gross domestic product. If that’s the case, $96,000 is a pretty paltry payoff.

By: IludiumPhosdex

IludiumPhosdex — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 17:53:31 +0000

Is it just me, or are those styling themselves “sovereign citizens” technically considered Stateless Nationals under international law and convention?

By: jonas

jonas — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 20:49:33 +0000

What this article describes is possibly yet another “entrapment” scheme, a particularly unethical and mendacious sting, where a paid FBI agent pretends to be a criminal and tricks or convinces an initially unwilling participant to commit a crime. The FBI has been know to use those slimy tactic before (our tax dollars hard at work?), and many questions are unanswered. The RJ (a local right-wing rag) article sort-of got around to the question of this being an entrapment sting when it quoted Todd Leventhal, the defense attorney, as saying that the FBI baited Davis into money laundering. However, it does not address the question further,giving the reader the idea that it was just the attorney trying to do his best at defending his client for money. What if it is true, though? Who approached who first, the FBI agent or the “sovereign”? What evidence does the defense have for the claim of entrapment? Maybe it is worth looking into, because this might not be so black-and-white as it is portrayed in corporate media. It is possible that Davis did not originally set out to launder money, but that the FBI tricked him into doing so.