A federal jury on Friday convicted James Timothy Turner, one of the nation’s most prominent antigovernment “sovereign citizens,” on 10 tax fraud charges stemming from seminars he held between 2007 and 2009 that purported to teach people how to tap into “secret” government accounts to pay their tax bills.

Turner, 57, of Ozark, Ala., gave a half-hearted wave as U.S. Marshals took him into custody after the guilty verdict was read today in Montgomery, Ala. He faces as many as 168 years in prison when he is sentenced in U.S. District Court this summer.

Turner was convicted of using a fictitious financial instrument, purportedly valued at $300 million, to pay his own taxes and of assisting others who wanted to get out of paying their taxes with similar “bonds” that he claimed would draw on government accounts. ( continue to full post… )

James Timothy Turner, the self-styled “president” of the Republic for the united States of America (RuSA), was indicted today on charges of conspiracy to defraud the federal government and several other tax charges, including attempting to pay taxes with a fictitious financial instrument and attempting to obstruct an Internal Revenue Service investigation.

Based in the southeast Alabama town of Ozark, Turner heads what is likely the largest and most organized group of antigovernment “sovereign citizens” in the country. ( continue to full post… )

In the hours since a man enraged at the government slammed his small plane into an Austin, Tex., IRS building, white supremacists and their fellow travelers have elevated Joseph Andrew Stack into an icon of resistance to tyranny.

“The Guy is a true HERO!!!” wrote “northroad” on Stormfront.org, the largest white supremacist Web forum in the world. “God bless him,” chimed in “Rudyard,” following a comment by “suepeace”: “This was quite heroic. There is a gradual awakening underway. I wonder how racially conscious he was.”

Shortly after Stack slammed his Piper PA-28 into the IRS building Thursday morning, killing himself and one IRS worker and injuring another 13 people, a manifesto the man apparently wrote just before the attack came to light. In it, Stack bitterly railed against a wide variety of targets — big business, corporate executives, unions, the Catholic Church, the recent bailouts of various industries, and more — but he kept coming back to the alleged evils of American government in general and, more specifically, the Internal Revenue Service and tax law. That made him a hero in the eyes of many on the radical right — so-called tax protesters — who have long believed that federal taxes were illegal or simply voluntary. Although many tax protesters who call themselves “sovereign citizens” subscribe to a racist ideology, there was no indication that Stack entertained racist ideas.

Nevertheless, white supremacists were thoroughly excited by his attack. “I can feel the crunch coming,” wrote “Lady Spirit Warrior,” another poster on Stormfront. “This is just the beginning. Prepare for battle!” “Things are heating up in America,” added “Astragoth.” “This man won’t be the last to do something like this.”

“Leshrac,” writing at another radical Web forum, the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network, said: “Only bad I see about this is that he didn’t kill enough.” ( continue to full post… )

For many years he was the “monetary architect” of the “Liberty dollar,” much beloved by antigovernment “Patriots.” Nowadays, Bernard von NotHaus may be singing the lyrics of the 1970 Brewer & Shipley tune: “One toke over the line sweet Jesus …”

After running afoul of federal authorities over his alternative currency scheme, von NotHaus has embarked on a more ethereal venture, the Free Marijuana Church of Honolulu, where he is the “high priest.” Church members step into the “High Room” for one toke of marijuana, then retire to a meditation room “in serene bliss,” according to a church press release.

Von NotHaus, 64, says he once was friends with psychedelic drug proponent Timothy Leary, but he’s best known among radical right “Patriots” for creating “American Liberty currency” in money certificate denominations of $1, $5 and $10 starting in 1998. The certificates were backed by stocks of silver and gold stored in Idaho, von NotHaus said. The currency is popular with extreme-right tax protesters and members of the radical “sovereign citizen” movement, who maintain that the federal government has no right to tax or otherwise regulate them, as well as those who believe that the Federal Reserve, America’s central bank, is run by a private body for personal profit.

Fourteen months ago, federal agents seized two tons of copper coins featuring Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul and 500 pounds of silver from a Liberty Dollars warehouse, and raided the company’s Evansville, Ind., headquarters after the U.S. Mint issued a public warning to consumers and businesses that using Liberty Dollars in lieu of U.S. currency was a crime. While von NotHaus feared he might be arrested on allegations of violating federal laws prohibiting the private manufacturing of currency, he was not criminally charged. He has always insisted that Liberty Dollars are a voluntary barter currency, not “legal tender,” “current money” or “coin.”

( continue to full post… )