Promoting fictitious bonds for tax payments leads to conviction for 'sovereign citizen'.

• Author: Nevius, Alistair M.

A proponent of the "sovereign citizens" movement and self-proclaimed president of the "Republic for the United States of America" has been convicted of conspiracy to defraud the United States through a series of seminars in which attendees were taught to pay their federal income taxes by filing fictitious bonds (Turner, No. 1:12cr169-MHT (M.D. Ala. 3/25/13)).

Followers of the sovereign citizens movement maintain that individuals can decide which laws to obey. One tactic they practice involves engaging in protracted legal battles in which the individual files numerous court filings espousing various legal theories couched in a coded "truth language" that requires a lexicon to decipher.

The defendant, James Timothy Turner, is president of what is reportedly the largest sovereign citizens group, the Republic for the United States of America. In September 2012, he was indicted by a federal grand jury on 10 counts, including a charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States.

The government demonstrated that Turner and his co-conspirator, Billy Ray Hall, put on a series of seminars around the country in which they taught attendees how to file fictitious bonds and other fictitious financial instruments as a way to pay their taxes and other debts. According to the government, the charge to attend these seminars was $150 and one pre-1964 silver dollar. The district court held that the filing of the fictitious bonds was done to defraud the United States.

The indictment said that Turner also caused "false, fictitious, and fraudulent...