Freemen Scam Turns Traffic Tickets into Cash
How would you like to turn your traffic tickets into assets? Since May 1999, leaders of the "Republic of Texas " have been teaching and practicing a new financial scam they claim does just that. It's called Redemption.
According to Texas Assistant Attorney General Peter Haskell, "freemen-type" trainers from Montana, Wallis Pederson and Gregg Williams, first brought word of the new scheme to the Republic of Texas activists. The Republic of Texas is known for a week-long standoff with authorities in 1997 after they stormed their neighbors with assault rifles and took them hostage in retaliation for the arrest of one of their members on weapons charges. Pederson is a tax protestor from Glasgow who was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 1993 for making false statements about his assets in bankruptcy proceedings.
Here's how the Redemption scheme is supposed to work. Since the U.S. is no longer on the gold standard as of 1933, paper money is not lawful and paying fines such as traffic tickets with paper money would therefore be a crime. This means that government, by requiring payment of fines with paper money, is inducing fraud. This purportedly gives the recipient of the fine (defendant) a claim against the court and the police officer who made the traffic stop. The defendant is then entitled to receive payment equal to the maximum amount of the fine and/or some much higher dollar amount apparently chosen at random by the defendant. (Are you following me so far? It gets even better.)
The defendant returns the citation with additional material referencing HJR 192 (passed by Congress in 1933) and claims that the recipient has "accepted for value" the amount of the fine. The defendant then files a lien with the secretary of state, naming himself as both the debtor and creditor on the lien. When he spells his name as the lien debtor it is done in all capital letters. This purportedly creates a non-existent "strawman" who is submitting to the government while the real filer (whose name appears in upper and lower case) is the creditor who remains free of government authority. (I hope you are thoroughly confused by now, because really, it's goofy.)
The defendant then fills out a "non-negotiable draft" or a "bill of exchange" for the random amount of money. The "bill" is drawn on the public official and made payable to the U.S. Treasury. The largest one seen so far was for $99 billion, but some are for very reasonable amounts like $25,000. The defendant presents these bills to a bank or retailer and tries to cash them by drawing on U.S. Treasury funds. Unfortunately, these documents look very official, with watermarks and tracking numbers. Some bank officials in Texas have been fooled.
There is a danger in all this craziness aside from the fact that a few of these financial instruments may be accepted at face value. Law enforcement officials may be so confused, intimidated, or overwhelmed that they abandon trying to do their legitimate public work such as collecting fines. And that, after all, is probably as much a goal of all these schemes as is financial gain--to harass government officials, to drive citizens from public service, and to see local government grind to a halt.
In any case, some "freemen" are apparently gladly accepting their traffic citations.