Tag Archives: sovereignty scam

Court ruling on substitute teachers’ pay, update on the alleged Maui sovereignty scam, good news on Ms. Wally

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Same old, same old. The Star-Bulletin reports today on the ruling of the Intermediate Court of Appeals upholding an earlier circuit court decision that the state underpaid substitute teachers.

The Advertiser reported this yesterday, but didn’t do their own reporting, instead carrying a Maui News story.

None of the reports bothered to link to the court’s decision, readily available online.

It’s a small thing, but it remains value added, whether many people actually click through to the decision or not.

Dog people might want to check out this story from the Seattle Times, which reports on a New Zealand study titled, “Time to Eat the Dog? The Real Guide to Sustainable Living”. It seems, according to this study, that dogs have an environmental footprint about as large as a good size SUV. Cats, not so much.

I checked back on the status of the ongoing investigation of the alleged mortgage fraud scheme on Maui which surfaced earlier this year. Pilialoha Teves, one of the those named in search warrants executed earlier this year, continues to file rambling documents in court demanding return of property, money, and documents seized during the FBI raids and objecting to a series of legal rulings rejecting her demands.

In a “Motion for determination of foreign law“, Teves argues that allegations that she was part of a mortgage fraud scheme are “not plausible or even possible” because all mortgage lenders themselves defrauded borrowers by failing to recognize laws of the Hawaiian kingdom as the only legal basis for property rights. At least I think that’s what is being argued.

A longer paper by Mahealani Ventura-Oliver details the sovereignty claims apparently underlying the group’s emerging defense.

But in an October 6 order, Judge J. Michael Seabright denied all the objections and motions, saying “these documents wholly lack merit” and calling their substantive arguments “irrelevant and/or ridiculous.”

“Given the history of this action and the court’s multiple efforts to address Petitioners’ arguments, the court can only conclude that the October 2 documents are frivolous,” the order states.

Seabright then ordered the most recent documents to be deleted from the court’s files and directed that no further documents can be filed in the case without prior court authorization except for a formal notice of appeal.

If fraud charges do eventual result from all this, I would guess that this sovereignty defense will not go very far in federal court.

WallyYesterday’s very good news is that Ms. Wally is on the mend.

It only took a few minutes for Dr. Force to do a few preliminaries and then check her mouth. Wally’s tongue is healing quite nicely, thank you! And that is interpreted to mean that this was a recent injury and not a developing cancer. No biopsy needed! The crew standing by for surgery could go on to other things, and Ms. Wally was free to come home. Well, she wasn’t free, being confined in her carrier. And she wasn’t happy about the state of affairs. But she was happy when we got home, as we were.

Monday (2)…Confidence scams

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You’re heard the term “con man”.

The term doesn’t derive from the term “convict”, as some believe, but from “confidence man”, meaning someone who swindles his or her victim after gaining their confidence.

Often the con man (or woman) targets specific groups they are part of–a church, a neighborhood, an ideological group, etc.

This works particularly well (from the point of view of the con artist) when potential victims share a distrust of authorities, especially the government and lawyers.

Viewed as an apparent confidence scam, there really isn’t much new in what the Hawaiiloa Foundation has been doing, i.e., using fictional but official-looking financial instruments grounded in a complicated anti-government philosophy claiming a type of sovereignty, with victims who are eager to believe the claims.

Similar scams among anti-government groups on the mainland were described by the agent in charge of the Secret Service Financial Crimes Division during U.S. Senate hearings back in September 1997.

Other groups active in the manufacturing and distribution of fictitious negotiable instruments have received a great deal of publicity for other reasons. These groups, and others like them, i.e., “posse comitatus,” “we the people,” “w.d. mccall,” “l.a. pethahia,” “mount calvary baptist,” “the central dominion trust bank,” “Republic of Texas,” and the “freeman”, are well known for their activities as militia groups and their anti-government philosophy. What is not known is their criminal activities in the area of fictitious negotiable instruments. The philosophies of these groups are generally similar, however, each group has its own unique beliefs. Some groups argue that banks and credit companies do not loan money, only credit, and contend that their phony certified money orders and bankers checks are therefore “credit money” and legal tender.

These groups argue that the real money is in gold and silver and not in the Federal Reserve System, again maintaining that the instruments they use are as good as federal reserve notes. Groups such as the freeman, hold seminars and instruct individuals on how to become “sovereign citizens.” This belief is allegedly based on common law and thereby precludes them from paying taxes. Additionally, they claim to have multi-million dollar liens against various federal, state, and local government agencies.

For a fee, some of these groups give seminars on how to create “comptroller warrants” and instructions on how to use them. These instructions include overpayment on each check issued, with the overpayment being shared with the organizers of this scheme.

As with other fictitious negotiable instrument schemes, all of these groups also use “official” looking documents and correspondence, citing non-existent laws and uniform commercial codes in an attempt to confuse and intimidate individuals, financial institutions, private companies, and law enforcement.

These groups attempt to intimidate those who refuse to accept these instruments as payments and those in law enforcement who are tasked with investigating these cases, with threats of liens on personal property as well as threats of personal harm. Losses attributed to these fictitious instruments have been incurred by individuals, financial institutions, automobile dealerships, and the U.S. government.

Recently, three individuals were arrested by agents from our Jacksonville and Oklahoma city field offices and were later indicted by a middle district of Florida federal grand jury for possession of fictitious financial instruments (18 USC 514). These three individuals were offering two fictitious certificates of deposit, supposedly worth $95 million and $50 million, as collateral to secure approximately $47.5 million in loans.

These certificates were drawn on Japanese and Indonesian banks. After a week long jury trial, all three defendants were found guilty. It should be mentioned that this was the first indictment of 18 USC 514 (possession of fictitious financial instruments) by any federal grand jury.