Sovereign Squatters: These Guys Make Tea-Baggers Look Normal
Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 7:40 pm
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Insurance executive Christina Suggett had just purchased an $800,000 home in Chula Vista, Calif., back in 2008, but when she arrived she found the locks changed and a deed posted in the window claiming the house now belonged to Maurice Simmons and Terry Lee Herron.
Herron, who has a felony conviction for auto theft, had signed his name on the deed as “King Solomon II.”
There was also a “no trespassing” sign, as well as another that read “Spiritual Sanctuary.”
The men claimed they were immune from arrest and prosecution because they were “sovereign citizens” who answer to “common law,” not judicial law.
“Sovereign squatters” justify their actions, according to the SPLC’s quarterly Intelligence Report, “with a mix of ‘common law’ theory, so-called sovereign immunity and references to the Old Testament.”
The most brazen attempt at a property takeover by the sovereign citizen movement may have occurred last year in a Miami suburb.
There, one Angel Cruz showed up with 20 black-clad followers and 10 hired – and armed – security guards, to take over a strip mall branch of the Bank of America.
Man....it truly takes all kinds to make the world go round.The Posse Comitatus members who got it all started filed millions of dollars worth of fake liens against public officials while maintaining the federal government and taxes were illegitimate.
The ideology spread to other anti-government groups, such as militias and white supremacy organizations, which also adopted other strategies. One, the “redemption theory,” holds that the federal government has enslaved its citizens by using them as collateral against foreign debt.
By claiming oneself as a “sovereign citizen,” one can not only escape the “slavery,” some people insist.
There are also fortunes to be made if one knows the “correct” documents to file.
“Originally taught in seminars at remote extremist compounds,” the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report says, “sovereign-citizen and redemptionist doctrine and tactics are now spread in online forums.”
