Oh, NOW You're Crazy

Brent Arthur Wilson decided that he's crazy after all.  The Montana Supreme Court disagreed.  From the Missoulian:

Brent Arthur Wilson, who insisted on serving as his own lawyer dozens of times during court appearances last year and once threatened to "arrest (the) bond and seize (the) surety" of any attorney who said one word on his behalf, argued on appeal that he never should have been allowed to represent himself.
The court disagreed, and also ruled against Wilson on two other issues.
"Though we acknowledge that Wilson's demeanor with the District Court was unconventional and at times somewhat bizarre, the fact remains that he was found by a mental health evaluator to be mentally capable of making decisions and fit to proceed and act on his own behalf," Justice Patricia Cotter wrote in the decision.
"Mindful of Wilson's right to represent himself if capable of doing so, the District Court was placed in the difficult position of balancing Wilson's constitutional right to counsel with his right to represent himself," she went on. "We conclude the District Court did everything in its power to persuade Wilson to accept counsel, without unduly pressuring him to do so in possible violation of his right to represent himself."

Plus there was this bit during his trial:

"For the record, on the record, let the record show I have no constitutional rights, I want no constitutional rights, I claim no constitutional rights," Wilson said repeatedly during court proceedings.

Be careful of what you wish for and all of that.

Video of Brent Arthur Wilson's Guilty Verdict

I know it's a month after it happened.  I've been ill.

Like the other videos of Brent and Jackiya you'll need to turn up your speakers to 11.

Brent Arthur Wilson: Guilty

Brent went to trial on Monday and was found guilty Tuesday morning. That's swift even by Montana standards, where it can be under a year from arrest to conviction for murder without a confession, and under six months with one.  It's not like I'm surprised or anything.  Sentencing is scheduled for 19 August.  The maximum punishment is 30 years in prison for the three felonies, six months in jail for the misdemeanor, and a $151,000 fine.  I don't have a clue as to what the likely sentence will be.  Judge Christopher might throw his ass in prison for 20 years just to save Lake county the cost of another trial.

From the Missoulian's coverage of Monday's proceedings:

Peering through reading glasses, accused house thief Brent Arthur Wilson spent the first day of his trial Monday alone at the defense table and seemingly uninterested in what was unfolding around him, poring over what appeared to be an Internal Revenue Service publication instead.

A few feet away, Lake County prosecutor Jessica Cole-Hodgkinson told a jury of nine men and three women that a year ago Wilson was unemployed, deeply in debt and living in a travel trailer.
But, she said, he was a "man with a plan," and the plan was to steal area homes in foreclosure - up to 100 of them, according to journals seized by authorities after they executed a search warrant on his residence.

Brent's residence at that time being another house he was attempting to steal.  That's making sure every i is dotted and every t is crossed with the same colored ink.  

Wilson, who has refused all attempts by District Court Judge Kim Christopher to appoint him legal counsel, didn't lift a finger in his own defense outside of repeatedly telling the judge that as far as he's concerned, he appears in her courtroom not as a criminal defendant, but only as the beneficiary to a trust in his name.

For anyone coming in late, Brent has repeatedly asked Judge Christopher to be the trustee of the BRENT ARTHUR WILSON Trust.  As she kept declining one can only assume the trustee of Brent's other trusts - "the creator, Yahweh" - has taken up that position.

He didn't ask a single question of potential jurors during the morning's jury selection, didn't exercise his right to preemptory challenges of any jurors, didn't object to the introduction of any evidence, and didn't cross-examine a single witness.
At times he appeared so engrossed in his reading material that only the silence in the courtroom made him aware the judge had addressed him and was waiting for an answer.
"Thank you for the question," Wilson said each time Christopher asked if he wanted to cross-examine someone, "but I appear only as the beneficiary. That question needs to be addressed to the trustee."

I can already see where this is going.  The basis of Brent's appeal will be that the trustee, i.e. God, was not allowed to be involved in the trial.  However, since God is omniscient and omnipresent, He was there and aware of all questions, statements, evidence, etc. and could have said something anytime He wanted to.  Even if prosecutor Cole-Hodgkinson said, "a trustee who apparently exists in his [Brent Arthur Wilson's] mind only."

The Missoulian didn't name the "Missoula financial institution" where Brent tried to get a loan for $125,000 using the property in question as collateral, nor how far into the loan process he got.  While I don't care all that much as to which bank / credit union / savings & loan was involved, just how deep into a home equity loan on property he didn't own is key to this symbolic denouement of the real estate pyramid scheme.

Not much happened on Tuesday.  A couple more witnesses, the prosecution's closing statement, and it took less than hour for a guilty verdict.  The verdict was the banner headline on today's edition, but there was a lot of padding with recap to justify that, because you can't run an above-the-fold story that's only five paragraphs long.  Plus there's not enough crazy, irony, or anything else to make up for the entire comics page not getting printed.  In any event, from the Missoulian:

Brent Arthur Wilson sat at his defense table alone on Tuesday, reading the Bible as jurors filed into the courtroom and delivered unanimous guilty verdicts in the peculiar case of a pilfered home.

Sentencing date, maximum possible punishment, recapping the saga, favorite wackiness, possibility of more charges, and at the very end the buried lede:

Cole-Hodgkinson said the spurious documents Wilson filed "created a cloud on the title," and he even scrawled his name into the property tract books maintained by the clerk and recorder's office.
"Of all the crimes that the defendant committed, that was probably the most heinous. The most far-reaching," she said, adding that people rely on those records when choosing their investments.
"I think he undermined everyone's sense of security," Cole-Hodgkinson said.
Susan Newton has worked in the Lake County Clerk and Recorder's Office since 1982, and has always felt the records should be accessible to the public. The way Wilson manipulated the records has her second-guessing that policy.
"We're a small county and we'd like to keep our books open to the public, but after this we may have to re-evaluate that," Newton said.

Anyone who has bought, sold, or taken out a loan for property knows the importance of a title search.  Any hiccup can delay or derail the process, and this is why it's important to know how far Brent got in getting a home equity loan.  It's like identity theft, in that once some jerk screws with your credit history you're the one who ends up paying for it.

The AP picked up the guilty verdict and ran an abbreviated version of the Missoulian's report.

I missed the report of a hearing on 1 July.  Here's a video of Judge Christopher and Lake County prosecutor Cole-Hodgkinson repeatedly trying to tell Brent all the different ways he can stop being stupid and get a shorter sentence.  Brent will have the last laugh. He's successfully stolen housing, food, and medical coverage from the state of Montana, and will continue to do so for how ever long he's sentenced.

Polite Antics Ensue

That's the headline for the article the print edition I received this morning. The headline of the online version is far more staid.

Brent continues to treat the case against him as a civil matter involving the BRENT ARTHUR WILSON Trust and that the US Constitution does not apply to him. Good luck with that.

Brent Arthur Wilson's courtroom demeanor has changed noticeably.

His legal strategy, not so much.

The defendant, who at one time had lectured the judge presiding over his multiple felony case by telling her she was "not God," was polite - sometimes exceedingly so - during an omnibus hearing here Thursday morning.

But the alleged Polson house thief, who is representing himself, remained just as committed to his unusual courtroom tactics as well.

He insisted that District Court Judge Kim Christopher address questions she asked of him to herself instead, as his "appointed trustee" of an express revocable trust in his name.

[...]

When Wilson tried to waive his "constitutional benefits in a trial" on Thursday, Christopher told him, "We don't conduct them any other way, Mr. Wilson."

Wilson's polite reply:

"I appreciate your offer, it's very generous of you, but I'm going to waive that constitutional benefit offer."

The big news, to me, is that everything up to this point involved what I've been calling the "third house," i.e. not the one he was living in nor the one he rented out to someone else, but the house he attempted to use as collateral for a home equity loan.  At least I hope it's the house he tried to use for a loan, but as there could be more than three houses involved who knows if that's ever going to be evidence in a trial.  I really, really want everything regarding a home equity loan on a house with paperwork involving Yahweh and reincarnation to be brought out in the open, because that will be the icing on the cake of the YIIKes! decade's real estate pyramid scheme.  

It's not easy to bury that sort of stuff in Montana like it is in other states.  

I've bought and sold property in California and it takes several hours to go through all the paperwork with a good Realtor who will explain everything so you don't have to read all of it yourself (which would take at least a day, assuming you had the correct reference books at hand) and not be an idiot and sign anything they put in front of you.  In Montana you can actually read each of the few documents in its entirety, understand them, and be done in under an hour.

The Lake County DA's office is still compiling charges, and may file those as a separate case. Why?  Because it's so freaking complicated.

The other properties involve other witnesses and different paper trails, and all are complicated, the assistant county attorney [Jessica Cole-Hodgkinson] said. She must also decide whether to amend the current charges - which include theft, deceptive practices and tampering with public records or information, all felonies - to include the other properties.

If Brent decides to, or Judge Christopher rules Brent is too crazy to represent himself and forces him to use a public defender, he could plead guilty and instantly be out on probation for time served. Hell, he doesn't even need a public defender to do that, all he has to do is stop believing in the Sovereign Citizen bullshit.

No, really.  From the last two paragraphs of the story:

Her other option is to file separate charges in those cases in a situation where, at least some have speculated, Wilson might otherwise already be out on probation and credited with time served, were he not insistent on following his curious courtroom strategies.

Wilson has already been judged mentally fit to stand trial.

So if Brent isn't crazy and thinks the Sovereign Citizen thing is a rational defense, even if being a true believer is keeping him in jail longer than necessary, does that make him a de facto member of the 'patriot' movement?  According to David Neiwert at Crooks and Liars it does.  Personally I think that's insulting to Brent, who might be opting for the guaranteed three squares and a bed.

Don't underestimate Brent's legal kung fu.

Jackiya Ford: Officially Crazy. Brent Wilson: Unofficially Scary

Jackiya Ford is officially crazy. According to the article in the Missoulian from 1 June 2010 (I'm having problems with my meds, hence the delay):

A psychological evaluation of the 37-year-old woman accused of stealing a home in Lolo revealed that she is not mentally fit to proceed to trial, but prosecutors want a second opinion.

[...]

An appointment for the second evaluation couldn't be made until mid- to late July, however, and Public Defender Chris Daly said that was too long to wait under Montana's speedy trial guarantees.

[Judge Robert L. "Dusty" Deschamps III] agreed, and said the prosecutor would have to find a private psychologist who could perform the evaluation sooner.

"I'm not going to leave someone who is mentally ill and suffering from delusions sitting in a jail cell for two months while she waits for a bed at the state hospital," Deschamps said.

I wonder what gave it away? Was it her LinkedIn page where she claimed to have marched with MLK several times, the Dr. Bronner-like rant on her MySpace page (see Jackiya Ford: Crazier than I thought for more of that sort of madness), or the pure insanity of an African-American gospel singer appropriating the language and methods of a scam rooted in Identity Christianity to attempt to steal property in MONTANA? (see Reverend Colonel William Potter Gale must be spinning in his grave for details)

Perhaps she had something new for the people evaluating her.

Meanwhile, since the 1990s were 20 years ago it's time for '90s retro chic.  Militias were hot as the right-wing political extremists of the 1990s, so they're back.  Montana had two organizations in the vanguard of patriots guarding against the Black Helicopters and New World Order: the Militia of Montana and the Freemen.  Brent is reminding people of the Freemen.  I originally thought he wasn't involved with the neo-Freemen who are openly back in Lincoln county.  Most political extremists are united only by overlapping aspects of their ideologies;  Brent is probably acting on his own, like whoever did the drive-by "paper terrorism" in Hamilton county earlier this year.  So if he used the Freemen's tactics to try to acquire some property, will he do the same during his trial?  An article in the Missoulian from 3 June 2010 tries to answer that.

Nick Murnion was Garfield County attorney who prosecuted members of the Montana Freemen.  He said:

"Some have said very few things and mostly just sat there," ... "This fellow sounds more vocal. Obviously, none of them believe the state has any authority over them - they claim they aren't citizens and the courts have no jurisdiction. It gets kind of bizarre."

How bizarre?

"Does the courtroom where he's appearing have an American flag in it?" ... "If the flag has a fringe on it, I've seen them claim it's a maritime flag and therefore the court only has jurisdiction on water."

Like the Freemen Brent insists he has no rights, wants no attorney, and doesn't recognize Lake County's jurisdiction over him.  It's doubtful anyone would believe it if Brent offered a $1 million dollar bounty on the prosecutor as happened to Mr. Murnion, but Brent rented out one of those houses and was in the process of getting a home equity loan, so anything is possible.

In 2008 the US Supreme Court ruled that if someone is declared competent enough to stand trial the judge could still say that person is too crazy to represent themselves, and the judge gets to determine that however they like.  (Indiana v. Edwards) It's like obscenity, the judges know it when they see it.  However...

Broadwater County Attorney John T. Flynn says the Montana Supreme Court has said that defendants have an absolute right to represent themselves, in a ruling that essentially read, he says, that "in Montana, you have a constitutional right to be a fool."

A defendant who disrupts proceedings and does not conform to a certain level of decorum, however, does not have an absolute right to be present in the courtroom, and Flynn says that leads to a couple of competing rights for those who represent themselves.

They have the right against self-incrimination, but they also can't obstruct justice.

A defendant who disrupts proceedings and does not conform to a certain level of decorum, however, does not have an absolute right to be present in the courtroom, and Flynn says that leads to a couple of competing rights for those who represent themselves.

It would be a tad bit difficult to represent yourself if you're not allowed to be in the courtroom.  Judge Deborah Christopher would probably have to invoke Indiana v. Edwards, tell Brent to suck it up, and appoint a lawyer to represent him.

Read the full article for more potential courtroom antics and wacky prosecutorial war stories. 

Brent Arthur Wilson, public enemy #275,000

A trial date has been set for 12 July.  Another omnibus hearing is scheduled for 10 June regarding charges for one or more other properties.  I really hope evidence about the home equity loan Brent was supposed to have started the process for comes to light.  That is what makes his case truly emblematic of the YIIKes decade's real estate pyramid scheme.  At his most recent hearing Brent took the dare to make even less sense than before.  From the Missoulian article:

[Judge] Christopher again asked Wilson to accept legal representation from the public defender’s office, again told him she could not rule on any motion that hadn’t been made in writing, and again warned him she would not accept nor perform and fiduciary responsibility in the matter even if he did request it in writing.

“I cannot assume that, I cannot practice law, I can perform only as a judge in this case,” she told him.

“Well,” Wilson announced, “I think it’s apropos then that, for the record, on the record, let the record show that I reiterate the situation from last May 20.”

And this is what he went on to say:

“I, Brent Arthur Wilson the man; on the land, born of spirit, of issue, of messiah on the most high; grantor, trustor, settler of the all capitals B-R-E-N-T A-R-T-H-U-R W-I-L-S-O-N Trust; do appoint and nominate District Court Judge Deborah Kim Christopher as the trustee for the Express Revocable all caps Brent Arthur B-R-E-N-T A-R-T-H-U-R W-I-L-S-O-N Trust, with the following three points of law:”

He went on to talk about trusts.

“The purpose for which a trust may be created is the tangent purpose of the settler in truth. It is the law of the trust,” he said, adding that “Brent Arthur … the man is not defaulted as the trustee for the all capitals B-R-E-N-T …”

Well, you get the picture.

“Do you have any evidence to the contrary, Your Honor?” Wilson asked when he was finished.

The other news was how Brent is in the news.  Even the Facebook group I created about Brent is getting some media attention.  OK, it got some local medium attention as part of an article in the Missoulian about Brent gaining national notoriety.  The group's entire manifesto (i.e. description) was reprinted, and I can't ask much more than that.  Alright, I can ask for a link to the group in the online edition, but a Facebook group is easy enough to find.

The article begins with:

When Assistant Lake County Attorney Jessica Cole-Hodgkinson plugged Brent Arthur Wilson’s name into an Internet search engine Wednesday afternoon, it delivered 4,000 hits.
When she tried it again Thursday morning, it was up past 6,000.

That would have been the 20th and 21st of May.  I don't know which search engine or how she entered the search.  Asking the Googles today about "Brent Arthur Wilson" returns 93 unique pages, and about 800 to 7,200 if you include everything with his name that is a link to one of those pages and each time that link shows up on a site.  I've got over 150 posts and a label with his full name, so if you tell Google to show you every single entry you'll get over 150 links to this blog alone.  It's a similar situation with the Missoulian's site and any other media site in Montana with a news section that picked up at least one article about Brent.  Searching for "Brent Wilson" isn't going to work, as that guy is a rugby star and bass player who also happens to be a legitimate real estate agent in several states.  Entering Brent Arthur Wilson without quotes returns almost 800 unique results out of a possible 275,000.  Most of those are not about anyone named Brent Arthur Wilson, are from news/blog aggregators, or are the results of searches run on other sites, including searches that aren't about our Brent.  That search does return several pages about Brent that are outside of Montana and aren't the News of the Weird entries previously mentioned.

It's not possible to get a good fix on how many sites have written about Brent.  Regardless of the search method used, here are some other examples of Brent's growing notoriety.

Domestic Terrorists or Fierce Patriots? on the investment / money management site Main Street, Seth Fiegerman followed up on Tristan Scott's article from the Missoulian in comparing Brent and Jackiya Ford (whom the article is mostly about) with the all-American domestic terrorists - white stupidists supremacists & separatists - for appropriating the sovereign citizen & redemption scams.  Mr. Fiegerman wrote about sovereign citizens:

They want to rely on common law rather than federal law and restore a certain simplicity to America. The hope is that they can get rid of the big banks and big government so they can be free to live in this country without being “hijacked” by these imposing forces. In essence, they are arguably a more zealous and extreme version of the Tea Party movement. Sovereign Citizens promote individual liberties, but they also have taken controversial steps that endanger fellow citizens; members bill themselves as true patriots and yet they break laws and take steps to undermine the government.

The comparison is hardly new.  I read it a few places before writing this in a post commenting on the Missoulian article:

Some of the more extreme tax protesters have been linked with white separatists / supremacists. Lots of people have already connected the extremist tax protesters to the Tea Baggers Party, and Tea Party rhetoric sounds a lot like sovereign citizen / redemption rhetoric.

Wow!  The Tea Party isn't exclusively white after all!

If you like it when Tea Baggers go ballistic, be sure to read the comments on Mr. Fiegerman's article.

Brent has been linked to the white stupidists and their sovereign citizen's scam by Rick Ross.  The articles are just reprints from the Missoulian, but getting listed on Mr. Ross' site usually qualifies you as a dirtbag.

Some nimrod stopped by the Tree of Liberty forum trying to sell the sovereign citizens scam as a way to "achieve true justice."  Two Missoulian articles about Brent were used to demonstrate how ridiculous the scam is.  If Objectivists who are still getting ready to survive a post-Y2K meltdown and veer into Black Helicopter territory now and then think something promising freedom from the government is crazy you know it's fucking crazy.

You're a legal genius Brent Wilson. Or maybe crazy after all.

Judge Deborah Christopher declared Brent Wilson sane enough to represent himself at trial, with the usual caveats judges give to people who want to do that.  E.g. "You're an idiot."

Yesterday's promise of courtroom antics were fulfilled when Brent appointed Judge Christopher the trustee of the BRENT ARTHUR WILSON Express Revocable Trust.  Brent was very insistent about the capslock name, so it's pretty obvious he knows how to game the system; as long as the system is Linux- or DOS-based.  Judge Christopher declined.

Although Brent managed to address Judge Christopher correctly during this hearing, he refused to rise for her when she entered the court.  I think he had risen in another way and didn't want everyone to know.  Really, Brent, there are better ways to stalk meet women.

More details at the Missoulian.  I'll post any video I find of this hearing.

Brent Arthur Wilson: Sane enough to stand trial

Hot off the Missoulian's press, or however they print their website:

POLSON - A drifter known for his courtroom antics and accused of trying to steal a foreclosed house in Polson is competent to stand trial.

Brent Arthur Wilson, 53, is back in the Lake County jail after being committed to the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs, where physicians determined he was fit to stand trial.

Lake County District Judge Kim Christopher sent Wilson to the state mental hospital after he refused to participate in court hearings or to work with a public defender.

The article continues at the website, although it's mostly a brief rehashing of what's happened so far.  

An omnibus hearing is scheduled for today.  We'll just have to wait for more antics, and if Judge Deborah Christopher rules Brent competent enough to defend himself.  

Won't you please adopt a home today

Brent and Jackiya aren't the only ones who've adopted the sense of entitlement, and brain-twisting ideology that justifies it, that was once the province of Identity Christianity and its pea-brained offspring.  "Home adoptions" are happening around the country.  The Missoulian ran an article about it.  What's happened here in Montana is far more interesting.  

Brent Wilson encapsulates the real estate pyramid scheme of the YIIKes decade by targeting foreclosed properties, 'adopting' more than one house, renting out one he wasn't living in, and being in the process of getting a home equity loan on one of the adopted properties when he was caught.  And I'm sure lots of felons wish they had the balls to sass a judge.

Jackiya Ford runs Identity Christianity through the looking glass.

But there is one guy who, at first, seems to be a real hero of the foreclosed upon.  From  'Home adoptions' in Lolo, Polson: Sovereign squatters a national movement:

The most brazen attempt at a property takeover by the sovereign citizen movement may have occurred last year in a Miami suburb.

There, one Angel Cruz showed up with 20 black-clad followers and 10 hired – and armed – security guards, to take over a strip mall branch of the Bank of America.

Wearing counterfeit U.S. Treasury badges, according to a story by Casey Sanchez in the SPLC’s Intelligence Report, the 30 blocked the bank’s entrance, parking lot and drive-through lanes.

Cruz apparently believed what he was doing was legitimate. A week earlier, Sanchez reported, the 49-year-old had stopped by the Palmetto Bay Police Department and asked that officers back him up during his “eviction” of the Bank of America.

“To an incredulous police officer,” SPLC’s Intelligence Report said, “Cruz handed over a ‘court order’ signed and sealed by a ‘judge’ from ‘The United Cities Private Court’ ” – United Cities being a company Cruz started.

The 20 followers who joined him were employees of United Cities. For turning over their personal assets, including cash, they had been promised new cars, 30 years of job security and that their mortgages and credit card bills would be paid off by their new employer. SPLC says Cruz intended to accomplish this using “fake bank drafts and fistfuls of ‘United States Private Dollars,’ a counterfeit currency he churned out in his Orlando, Fla., home.”

The so-called court order he handed over to police “referenced a pending $15.25 billion lawsuit against Bank of America filed by Cruz the previous month in Miami-Dade County Court,” Sanchez wrote. “Cruz claimed the bank had wronged him because an Orlando branch refused to cash $14.3 million in phony United Cities bank drafts.

“Taking his beef public, Cruz also had posted a YouTube video announcing his upcoming ‘foreclosure’ of two Miami-area Bank of America branches, while ranting about the Federal Reserve as ‘Satan’s banking system.’ ”

Angel Cruz: bastard love child of David Koresh and the Montana Freemen?  Did he get the modern equivalent of a pitchfork-and-torch-wielding mob together to go after a facilitator of the real estate pyramid scheme and foreclose them?  Hell yeah!

No, not really.  He went after Bank of America because they wouldn't accept a couple million dollars in homemade Monopoly money from the crazy multilevel marketing scam Cruz had going since the mid-2000s.  Long, serious journalism version.  Shorter News of the Weird version.

I still think Brent would make a better cult leader, since he totally looks like Charlie Manson.

Brent Arthur Wilson in the media spotlight

Chuck Shepherd wrote up Brent's doings the Creme de la Weird entry for his News of the Weird column of 25 April, 2010. 


Edit 6 May 2010: URL updated with permanent archive address.

Real Estate Scams = Domestic Terrorism? Why not.

As Tristan Scott wrote in the second story:

The allegations against Ford smack of the recent case of Brent Arthur Wilson, 53, who faces felony charges in Lake County for his alleged attempts to steal a $300,000 house in foreclosure.

California woman charged with moving into, claiming Lolo home she didn't own

Jackiya D. Ford, 37, was arrested on April 14 and her belongings removed from a house built by Bob Paffhausen. She made an initial appearance in Justice Court on April 19 and her bail was set at $50,000.

Paffhausen said Ford had showed up about two weeks earlier to view the house as a prospective buyer. Sometime after that, prosecutors say Ford delivered paperwork to Paffhausen claiming ownership of the house and the land in a 20-mile radius around it. She offered to drop the lawsuit if Paffhausen would pay her about $900,000 in pure silver and gold.

Paffhausen received a call from NorthWestern Energy saying someone had reported a natural gas leak at the house. Paffhausen went to the house, where he found the locks and garage door codes had been changed and notices were posted on the doors claiming the house had been given to Ford by "our Lord and Savior Yahushua."

Smacks of Brent indeed.  I like the part about wanting to be paid in real money instead of the Fed's worthless fiat script.  And her name.  It seemed a straightforward copycat crime.  Brent's meme was spreading.  Why should Wall Street types be the only ones to get paid by the government to commit white collar real estate crime?  Everyone should be able to get in on it!

The next day the Missoulian published this story:

Alleged Lolo 'house theft' may have been inspired by extremist websites

Some highlights:

"It's very difficult to unrecord a document once it's been recorded, so we try to catch these things when they appear on the verge of legality," said Debbe Merseal, Missoula's chief deputy clerk and recorder.Merseal said Ford's filings were so unusual that she sent the paperwork to the legal eagles in the Missoula County Attorney's Office for review. She said the woman tried to have several certified deeds and patent documents re-recorded, but refused to give a reason for the request.

"This definitely was an unusual document," Merseal said. "She described it as a ‘patent sandwich.' I don't believe we've ever seen anything like this."

[...]

The woman first came onto the radar of local law enforcement when she became disorderly in the Missoula County Attorney's Office and had to be removed. She filed "bogus" lawsuits against several sheriff's deputies, said Lt. Rich Maricelli, and demanded settlements be paid in gold and silver.
"It's been an absolute nightmare," Maricelli said.

[...]

Ford told the deputies that she was a "sovereign citizen of the republic of America" and therefore officials had no authority over her. She said she owned the whole mountainside and that they were on private property.At the time of her arrest, she had been living in the house about two weeks.

Ford's alleged intimidation tactics are consistent with the Sovereign Citizen Movement, whose adherents use "paper terrorism" as a form of harassment.

Paper terrorism involves the use of fraudulent legal documents and filings, as well as the misuse of legitimate documents and filings, in order to intimidate, harass and coerce public officials, law enforcement officers and private citizens, according to an FBI news release warning of the practice.

[...]

That FBI issued its news release one day before Ms. Ford was arrested.  The Sovereign Citizen Movement is the third in an ongoing series to educate the public about "U.S.-based extremist ideologies."  The Montana Freemen of the 1990s were sovereign citizens.  This is just one more indicator that they're back.

I don't think Brent is involved with the neo-Freemen, or any other sovereign citizens.  I'm pretty sure his motives are from divine inspiration, and/or getting his share of the good times like everyone deserves and not just Wall Street fatcats. 

I have no idea what motivates Ms. Ford.

Video of Brent telling Judge Deborah, "You are not God."

Video and mugshot courtesy of the Lake County Leader.

Forum Software Upgrade and More Fantabulous Procrastination

I'm preparing for an upgrade to version 3.0.whatever-is-current of Invision Power Board.

Crazy Boards runs under IPB 3.0.x, so look there if you want an idea of what the new software is like. We won't look exactly like that, especially since they're fond of modifying the software, but you should get the general idea.

I can't give you an estimate yet as to when it'll start, how long it will take, etc. As always such things depend on my mental and physical health, as well as consecutive hours of relative clarity of thought.  I've downloaded the software and gave the upgrade manual a quick scan, so at least I've started.

As much as I'd rather leave the software as it is, Invision software has announced that the version of the software we now have will no longer be supported. In addition to the usual health excuses, I've been putting off the upgrade because version 3.0.lower-than-it-is-now was really fugly and, in some areas, had less functionality than what we have now. I'm still not a big fan of how it looks, but it does everything the 2.3.5-and-up version does in addition to all the new bells and whistles.

I like 3.1 a lot more, but it's still in beta. I just can't wait for that version if I need any technical support, as support for 2.3.get-with-the-program will end before 3.1 will be stable enough for general release, let alone stable enough for me to install.

As for the procrastination, I've created yet another stupid Facebook group.  Fans of Brent Arthur Wilson.  Why? Brent Arthur Wilson encapsulates the entire zeitgeist of the real estate pyramid scheme of the previous decade. He's probably a criminal. He may be crazy. But is he all that different from the predatory lenders offering, or the would-be house flippers taking out loans where one made payments only on the interest until that final, big-ass balloon payment? Is all the paperwork he filed packed with Biblical references any more bizarre than the recursive, debt-based derivatives that led to the near-collapse of our financial system?

To top it all off, he sasses and mouths off at the judge who is currently in charge of his immediate fate. While acting as his own lawyer. So not only is he charged with stealing oversized houses like the bankers themselves, he's a one man pitchfork-and-torch-carrying mob who doesn't consider himself subservient to a judge, or anyone else who considers one person as being the better of another.

News you can confuse, use, or lose.

There's a proposal before the Missoula city council to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.  Naturally a bunch of closed-minded bigots will have problems with that sort of thing, but this one is really special.  NotMyBathroom.com allegedly represents 17 or so groups opposed to the proposal because it would allow men to use the ladies' room and thus frighten and confuse children.

I shit ye not.

It will also force ministers to perform gay marriages, give homosexuals 'special' rights, and the usual litany of orgiastic end-times tribulations.

But they don't hate homosexuals.  Really.

And the various groups that are part of the umbrella organization can't be identified because, you know, gay bashing isn't protected speech.  And since contributing over $100 to a political campaign goes on the public record, everyone who gave more than $100 to California's Prop. 8 suddenly felt threatened and oppressed by homosexuals.

Who is behind the frightened people in the bathrooms?  Tireless WalMart-funded anti-porn crusader Dallas Erickson.  It doesn't matter that there's hardly any porn where he lives, that most of it is in the form of Playboy, Penthouse, and video equivalent, and next to impossible for someone under 18 to look at.  He's one of those guys who stays up late all night worrying that someone is having a good time.  Scroll down to Time to stop this permissiveness to see one of his great anti-porn rants.

Here's the Missoulian's story on NotMyBathroom.com

You know how first / emergency responders have large-scale drills to work out various scenarios.  A bunch of people with nothing better to do act like they've been killed or injured by an earthquake, terrorist attack, bioweapon oopsie, whatever, and the coordinated police, fire, and appropriate other agencies figure out how well their plans would work when there's nothing else happening outside of the few blocks they've roped off.

How do you do that when you don't have much money?  Actual headline:

Playing with fire: Agencies stage disaster using Hot Wheels, Army men

 

The concept of getting paid to be a fireman who plays with army men and Hot Wheels must be giving 8-11 year-olds total hard-ons.

Where do you go if your end-times, Mormon-offshoot religion is too freaky-weird for Utah and Idaho?  Montana!

Religious sect rejected by Utah, Idaho moves to Fromberg

A religious group led by a man who claims to be the Holy Ghost has moved to the Fromberg area after a brief stay in a small Idaho town where residents protested the group's building plans.

Their Fromberg neighbors are wary of the group and law enforcement officials have been notified of the group's activities in Utah and Idaho.

Members of the Church of the Firstborn and General Assembly of Heaven had fled to Idaho from Utah last year after their large home in a Salt Lake City suburb was raided by federal officials investigating claims of child sexual abuse and assassination threats against President Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Thomas S. Monson, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Last September, the group started moving from Idaho into two homes on a lot at 605 Bridger-Fromberg Road. The main home had been rented by Larry Daniels, who was sentenced last week to prison for murdering his adult son in the house.

The church is led by 43-year-old Terrill Dalton, who said group members are peaceful and felt drawn to Montana.

"We all prayed about where to go next and a lot of people had the same feeling that we ought to go to Montana, somewhere nigh unto Billings, not the city, but nearby," Dalton said.

Geody Harman is the church's co-leader, Dalton's "first counselor." Asked how many people live on the property, Harman had to stop and count.

"Fourteen or 15, something like that. No, it's 16," Harman said. That number includes the 36-year-old Harman's wife and their nine children.

The article continues at the link to the Missoulian.  It's '90s nostalgia.  These folk are the Church Universal and Triumphant of this decade. 

Our good buddy Brent Wilson just can't keep his mouth shut.  The headline in the early edition of the paper I get has a much better headline: Alleged house thief continues to mouth off.  "Mouth off" isn't as good as "sasses," but is still pretty good.

Brent is obviously crazy, and medication would likely help him, especially since he insists on acting as his own lawyer, but I think he's great.  The way he attempted to steal the houses is totally batshit crazy, yet he managed to get a home equity loan for one of them.  He claims to neither have nor need constitutional rights, which is probably his justification for treating Deborah, sorry, Judge Christopher, just like any other person.  A bit dickish perhaps, but it's not like he called her a bitch or threatened her.  He's just asking to be held in contempt of court and/or in crazy lockup, but it could all be weird judicial kung fu.

There's no video of Brent mouthing off, but here's a direct link to the video when he first sassed Judge Deborah Christopher.

Sassing judges: never a good idea

One reason why I love living in Montana: reading this sort of headline in the local paper.

Man accused of stealing Polson-area foreclosed house sasses judge.

Details and video of sassing at the link.

The way he stole foreclosed houses is pretty imaginative.   He'd find a foreclosed house that was on the market, take down the "For Sale" signs, break in change the locks, and file a bunch of weird paperwork.  For example:

"The designation trustee and steward as used herein," it reads, "shall include said resurrected and non-resurrected sons of man, and their heirs as required by context.

"Witnesseth that the trustee, for a valuable consideration paid by the trustee to the creator, Yahweh, the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, has and by these presents does grant and convey stewardship unto brent-arthur: in fee-farm, all that certain lot of land situated on Lake, the county, Montana, the land, commonwealth yiisra'el, and more particularly described as follows:"

What follows is a lengthy description that begins with the "third planet from the sun" and ends with plat tract book information.

The document appears to be notarized, but in her charging affidavit, deputy county attorney Jessica Cole-Hodgkinson notes "it does not list the notary's name, expiration of their notary power, or their location." Instead, under an illegible signature, it reads, "My commission expires: upon my final breath."

"I couldn't believe the Clerk and Recorder would take something like this, but what I learned was they can't stop anybody from recording anything," [Ed] McCurdy says.

Ed McCurdy is the Realtor of the foreclosed property in the above example. Mr. Wilson was able to get at least one home equity loan on one of the properties he and Yahweh "own."  I thought lenders were being more careful these days.

Great picture of him in court.  There's something familiar about about this guy...

I couldn't help it.