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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA small bit of good news: fake "judge" Bruce Doucette gets 38 years
http://www.westword.com/news/sovereign-citizen-judge-bruce-doucette-receives-38-year-prison-sentence-for-paper-terrorism-activity-10342106https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/05/23/sovereign-citizen-bruce-doucette-sentenced-38-years-prison
Bruce Doucette is one of the pioneers of the "citizen grand jury" movement. For at least 10 years, he traveled the country representing himself as the "Superior Court Judge of the Continental uNited States of America" ("uNited" is how he spells it) teaching sovereign citizens to set up "common law courts."
This is what the bastard would do.
If a sovereign citizen got arrested - you could make a Geico commercial out of this shit..."if you're a sovereign citizen, you get arrested all the time, it's what you do" - Doucette and his merry men would try to bully the local justice system into dropping the charges. If that didn't work, his "Continental uNited States Marshals" would threaten to arrest the officials and bring them before an extralegal "common law court" that would sentence them to death. They would then file liens - Trump-style liens, the biggest liens, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of liens - against the officials' homes, cars and other property.
Doucette went to Oregon during the Bunkerville Standoff to try to raise a citizen grand jury to try all the officials in the area for crimes against...well, humanity I guess. It didn't work.
Last year, the feds had a revelation: Doucette was working primarily in Colorado. Colorado has good anti-sovereign citizen laws and a populace that can't stand the bastards. The feds asked the Colorado attorney general to take the case. In April 2017, this indictment was handed down: https://www.scribd.com/document/344449620/People-of-the-State-of-Colorado-vs-Bruce-Doucette-et-al
The charges:
1) Pattern of racketeering-participation in an enterprise
2) Conspiracy
3-6) Attempt to influence a public servant
7) Extortion
8) Conspiracy to commit extortion
9) Offering false instrument for recording
10) Retaliation against a judge
11) Retaliation against a prosecutor
12-14) Attempt to influence a public servant
15) Extortion
16) Conspiracy to commit extortion
17-18) Retaliation against a judge
19-22) Attempt to influence a public servant
23) Extortion
24) Conspiracy to commit extortion
25-30) Attempt to influence a public servant
31) Extortion
32) Conspiracy to commit extortion
33) Retaliation against a judge
34) Criminal impersonation-gain a benefit
35) Tax evasion-failure to pay
36) Failure to file a return or pay tax
37) Attempt to influence a public servant
38) Extortion
39) Conspiracy to commit extortion
40) Retaliation against a judge
The defendants:
Bruce Doucette
Stephen Nalty (currently serving 36 years after this conviction)
Janis Blease
Steven Byfield (currently serving 22 years after this conviction)
Laurence Goodman
David Coffelt
Harlan Smith
Brian Baylog
Doucette received these consecutive sentences:
20 years for participating in a racketeering enterprise
5 years for attempting to influence a public servant
And sentences of 4, 5 and 4 years for retaliating against three different judges
He also received a lot of concurrent sentences the SPLC didn't name.
The prosecutors wanted 45 years, but they're okay with 38 - he'll die in prison.
RKP5637
(67,030 posts)gratuitous
(82,849 posts)Too bad he's in state lock-up; we might have gotten some of that hot, hot, hot pro se action if Bruce had to file for redress of his many grievances in federal court. They're tedious little lawsuits, but sometimes there's unintentional humor in their attempts to write legal pleadings.
jmowreader
(50,447 posts)Before the sentence was handed down, he told the judge "may Yahweh have mercy on your soul." I hadn't heard this one before, but SPLC reports that many white supremacists follow the Sacred Name Movement and call God and Jesus by their Hebrew names.
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)Good news, Bruce: You don't have to consent to go to jail, you're going there anyway, you nitwit.
I'm guessing he's not going to find this game fun anymore.
Sneederbunk
(14,207 posts)Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)janx
(24,128 posts)I was keeping track of it and other SovCits for awhile (Bundys et al.) and had forgotten about Doucette.
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,272 posts)I show this to friends when they ask what is a sovereign citizen? - not that it explains much but its better than just saying they are nut-bars.
jmowreader
(50,447 posts)This is another classic, the "Article 4 Free Inhabitant Girl"...
Then we have this very new Moor one...
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(The best part about this one: the municipality where this guy was arrested is in Moore County, NC.)
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,272 posts)These people always remind me of Burt from the TV show Soap