'Sovereign citizen' boycotts own trial, convicted of fraud
Arizona Daily Star/August 23, 2014
By Patrick McNamara
The defendant sat silently throughout jury selection, the trial, the reading of the guilty verdict, and the moment when court security placed him in handcuffs and led him out of the courtroom.
Alberto Gonzalez Marrufo was convicted on Wednesday of two counts of fraud and one count of theft in Pima County Superior Court. He did not have a lawyer, did not present evidence or cross-examine the state’s witnesses, and did nothing to aid in his own defense.
In fact, Marrufo refused to even sit at the defendant’s table, choosing instead to watch like a spectator from the gallery as the prosecutor made a case against him.
When asked mid-trial to talk about his unconventional defense, he politely declined.
Marrufo is part of a loose-knit, anti-government group sometimes called the “sovereign citizen” movement. His refusal to participate in the court proceeding was an expression of the group’s rejection of governmental authority and the court’s authority to try and judge him. The specific charges against Marrufo included making counterfeit checks using the routing and account numbers of U.S. Treasury accounts, which he used to pay off the loan balances on two cars.
But more than a simple fraud and theft, Assistant Arizona Attorney General Mike Jette said, “This is a statement case,” which the state decided to prosecute to make clear no one, whatever their politics, has a right to access public funds for their own enrichment.
“This movement needs to be stopped,” Jette said.
Sovereign citizen refers to a subset of anti-government, anti-tax philosophies. The FBI considers the more extreme adherents of the movement, some of who have engaged in violence against law enforcement, as domestic terrorists.
While movement doctrine speaks to the anti-government sensibilities of many Americans, law enforcement says adherents’ proclamations often mask the nefarious goals of a larger scam designed to separate disaffected people from their money.
They generally reject all federal, state and local government authority, deny the authority of courts and judges, and repudiate the government’s right of taxation, contending the U.S. is governed by a secret corporate cabal.
With ideological roots in the 1970s Posse Comitatus movement, sovereigns often only recognize the authority of county governments, displaying special reverence to county sheriffs.
“They feel sorry for you and me because we’re still cowed by this system that keeps us in federal servitude,” said Ryan Lenz, senior writer for the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center.
Beyond unique interpretations of the law, many sovereigns share a fixation with punctuation and capitalization.
Because birth certificates and most legal documents display a person’s name in all capital letters, sovereigns claim this really represents the name of a shell corporation established in the person’s name.
They believe when the U.S. abandoned the gold standard in 1933, the government was forced to deposit its citizens’ future earning potential as collateral in secret trusts represented by the capitalized name.
The sovereign philosophy also has its own jargon-ridden language, which adherents deploy in often-indecipherable legal filings, believing that in using specific language and citing arcane laws, they can legally liberate themselves from the illegitimate corporate government cabal.
On some court papers, Marrufo handwrote, “No! No! No!” and “I do not recognize,” across the state’s filings. In others he wrote he “did not wish to contract” with the government, claiming the case lacked “ratification.”
“I object, deny and don’t recognize any and all contracts and alleged agreements made between judge Howard Fell, the Arizona State Attorney General Michael P. Jette there has been no ratification of commencement in the matter … and I cannot move forward with this case,” Marrufo wrote in a February 2013 filing.
Lenz said unorthodox courtroom behavior like Marrufo’s is typical of sovereigns. Marrufo’s refusal to go beyond the barrier separating the gallery from the litigants in the courtroom is also common practice.
“When you cross over that, you cross into an area of the country that has been annexed by Washington, D.C.,” Lenz said of the sovereign belief system, which also holds that federal authority doesn’t extend beyond Washington’s borders.
Law enforcement officials say sovereigns’ language and behavior is part of the larger goal of plundering public assets.
“A lot of times, you have people who are simply fraudsters,” said Joshua M. Robbins, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California. “Mr. Marrufo, from our perspective, is simply one of those people.”
Robbins helped prosecute Marrufo and dozens of other people who were previously involved in a large-scale tax fraud in California.
Federal investigators say a scam operated by a group called the Old Quest Foundation held seminars purporting to teach attendees how to void debts, prevent home foreclosures and access potentially millions of dollars the government held in their names in secret trusts.
Marrufo worked with Old Quest instructing people on ways to file fraudulent tax and court documents, Robbins said, calling it the largest tax-return fraud in the country’s history.
Under a plea agreement, Marrufo spent six months in federal prison.
Lenz said numerous so-called “sovereign gurus” travel the country selling “secret knowledge” at seminars and training sessions.
“We live in a country where the phrase ‘What the experts don’t want you to know’ is very popular,” Lenz said.
Lenz said sovereigns are responsible for the deaths of at least six police officers in recent years, which in part has led the federal government to classify the movement among domestic terrorist groups.
Jette said Marrufo has not made threats or shown any history of violence.
Marrufo is scheduled for sentencing Sept. 22. He faces between 3 and 12½ years in prison.
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