An accountant who took his antigovernment “sovereign citizen” views to work with him is going to prison, and many of his former clients are faced with huge, unpaid tax bills.

Timothy Garrison, 60, of Mount Vernon, Wash., was sentenced Wednesday to 42 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $95,626 in restitution after pleading guilty to two counts of assisting with the filing of false income tax returns. ( continue to full post… )

UPDATE 2.2.12: The jury sentenced James Michael Tesi to 35 years in prison.

A self-described “sovereign citizen,” who also called himself a “Moorish American,” has been convicted in Fort Worth, Texas, of shooting at a police officer who tried to arrest him for traffic violations last summer.

James Michael Tesi, 49, was taken into custody following the jury verdict Tuesday, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. The 12-member jury immediately began the penalty phase. Tesi faces up to life in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Tesi, an occupational therapist, was charged with aggravated assault on a public servant with a deadly weapon. The charge stems from a series of encounters he had with police for not wearing a seat belt, speeding, failing to show up in court and not producing a valid driver’s licenses. ( continue to full post… )

Everyone has heard of jailhouse lawyers. How about a jailhouse accountant – an antigovernment “sovereign citizen” doing time in New York – who got a $327,456 tax return from the IRS?

Ronald Williams not only filed 12 fraudulent tax returns for himself while behind bars, he also reportedly helped at least 10 other New York state prison inmates with their tax returns, testimony revealed at his just-concluded trial. ( continue to full post… )

A self-described “sovereign citizen” – part of what the FBI recently described as a growing and dangerous antigovernment movement – goes on trial this week near Fort Worth, Texas, on charges of aggravated assault on a public servant.

James Michael Tesi is accused of shooting at police officer John Fossett in the Fort Worth suburb of Hurst last July 21 when the officer attempted to arrest Tesi on a warrant. As frequently occurs with sovereign citizens, people who believe federal and state laws don’t apply to them, the potentially deadly shooting involving the police officer started as a relatively minor traffic infraction.

The danger of contact between police and sovereign citizens was underscored in an important report released just four months ago by FBI analysts who say sovereigns pose the greatest domestic terrorism threat. That report followed by more than a year the notorious May 20, 2010, murders of two West Memphis, Ark., police officers by a father-son team of sovereigns; both were later killed by police. ( continue to full post… )

Affirming his group’s embrace of antigovernment “Patriot” ideology, League of the South (LOS) President Michael Hill on Monday sent members an E-Mail declaring the federal government an “organized criminal enterprise” led by “domestic terrorists” and telling his followers to prepare for a fight.

“I discourage the formation of private militias except as a last resort,” he wrote. “If your State and local officials refuse to serve the citizens and to protect them by the historic means of Nullification, Interposition, or Secession, then you may have reached the ‘last resort.’”

It’s not especially shocking that a group that advocates secession and sees the Civil War as an aggressive attack on a peaceful people would articulate these ideas, particularly in an era that has seen a significant rise in Patriot activity overall. The LOS has been drifting in this direction since at least 2007, and the rhetoric at its July 2011 national conference stressed Patriot and survivalist themes more than ever. ( continue to full post… )

An antigovernment “sovereign citizen” indicted nearly three years ago in a money laundering case is back in custody and being returned this week to U.S. District Court in Nevada.

Shawn Talbot Rice surrendered and was arrested on Dec. 22 after a day-long standoff with FBI agents and local police in Seligman, Ariz. ( continue to full post… )

The suspect who shot and killed a Pennsylvania police officer and wounded a second policeman over the weekend died himself Monday in a gunfight with lawmen who surrounded his house in Webster, Pa.

Eli Franklin Myers III, 58, died in a hail of gunfire after he exited his home on Logan Street, firing a large-caliber handgun at Special Response Team officers who had identified him as the suspect in the deadly police shooting the previous night. ( continue to full post… )

An antigovernment “sovereign citizen” will spend 40 months in prison for threatening to use “deadly force” to arrest various government officials, including the mayor of Kirkland, Wash.

David Russell Myrland, sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court in Seattle, has made his living for the past 20 years through the unauthorized practice of law and by teaching others how to cheat on their federal income taxes, federal prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum. ( continue to full post… )

Anti-government sovereign citizens will file frivolous paperwork against anyone – even mailing their bogus legal documents to the home of the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and the director of the FBI.

Those allegations are contained in a 17-page criminal complaint just filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle accusing Kenneth Wayne Leaming of three counts of “retaliating against a federal judge or law enforcement officer by false claim.” ( continue to full post… )

A Washington accountant with ties to the antigovernment “sovereign citizens” movement has pleaded guilty to preparing false income tax returns that cheated the U.S. government out of an estimated $2.5 million.

Federal prosecutors will recommend that Timothy George Garrison, 59, of Mount Vernon, Wash., spend four years in prison when he is sentenced on Feb. 2 in U.S. district court in Seattle. He pleaded guilty last week to two counts of assisting in the filing of false federal tax returns. ( continue to full post… )