As a follow up to my last blog post about the sovereign citizens, who believe the laws don’t apply to them, I found this interesting article through the ABAJournal, see it here
One of the stories cited by the article is re: Victor Cheng:
“The Atta family locked up their Temecula, Calif., home and went on vacation in 2012. While they were gone, Victor Cheng moved in.
Cheng had owned the home before the Attas, but he lost it in foreclosure. Nonetheless, he filed a fraudulent deed with the county recorder’s office, transferred the utilities into his name and even tried to evict the Attas after their return.
During his prosecution for burglary, trespassing and filing a false document, he insisted that he was not the person being prosecuted because the indictment spelled his name in all capital letter.”
The article notes that the FBI has identified these people as “Paper Terrorists”
You can read the full article to get some more personal stories about how these “sovereigns” have wrecked havoc on peoples lives.
I had a client go through a similar situation – his spouse was a self-proclaimed “sovereign” and, unfortunately, she was in charge of all the family finances. She kept her activities secret from her husband for years and was filing maritime liens against every creditor they had. My client discovered, only through my due diligence, that his family home had already been foreclosed on and he was literally weeks away from being evicted (despite the fact that his spouse had filed a billion dollar “maritime lien” against the lender on their Home. Why a register of deeds would allow spouse to record such a silly thing is beyond me.)
The point of my post is simply an observation: it’s hard to defend against actions like Mr. Cheng’s when they don’t play by the rules.
Comments? Questions?
jeshua@dwlawpc.com
Lesson:
Purpose Driven General Counsel 