The American Gestapo --
Our State and Federal Agencies

(Some of the information on this page is from an article, "White Collar Gestapo," by Brigid McMenamin and Janet Novack which appeared in the Dec. 1, 1997, issue of Forbes Magazine. We have sent a request to the editor of Forbes for permission to use some passages from that article.)

When laws are so obscure, ridiculous, and huge in volume, it is very easy to find anybody guilty of almost anything! You then have a government not of laws, but of bureaucratic arbitrariness which can do anything lethal, illegal, or vengeful to any citizen.

When the criminals don't go to jail, but good citizens are arrested -- and convicted -- for minor offenses, we all have a problem.

We urge you, after reading the following, to call your Congressman and Senator to not only repeal the laws, but to have their staff examine the huge volumes of laws which are on the border of insanity -- some of which are listed below:

There are almost 3,000 criminal statutes like those listed above that nobody knows about! We are beginning to research laws and statutes which don't make amy sense and post them on the Internet. We need your help with this research. If you know of any state or federal laws, statutes, or regulations which are obscure and ridiculous, please e-mail the information to us at Scum USA

Here are some real examples of real people who received jail sentences for relatively minor offenses - in comparison to violent crimes of murder, rape, arson, drugs, etc.

Can the Government can put you in jail for committing a crime you didn't know was a crime?

Yes, they can! Just ask Michael Weitzenhoff and Thomas Mariani. The two plant managers had to find a solution for a buildup of sludge that the East Honolulu municipal sewage plant could not handle. They ordered the sludge to be discharged into the ocean. This practice continued for 14 months, until June, 1989. The two men claimed the discharges were allowed by the plant's waste discharge permit -- but they weren't.

Weitzenhoff and Mariani were sentenced to 21 months and 33 months respectively when a federal court found them guilty of violating the permit, among other things. The two men appealed, arguing they didn't know they were violating a law. The federal appeals court uphead the convictions saying it didn't matter whether the men knew the discharges were illegal -- they knew they were discharging sludge. And they went to jail.

Can the Government put you in jail for a fossil worth less than $100?

Yes, they can! Peter Larson of South Dakota was a fossils dealer who spent 18 months in a federal prison. He had the nerve to fight federal authorities all the way up to the Supreme Court over the possession of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton he had excavated. He didn't get to keep his T-rex. After scouring Larson's business records, the feds succeeded in putting him in jail on unrelated and seemingly petty charges:

Larson's lawyer, Patrick Duffy, analyzed the situation this way: "The moral is, don't piss off the Dept. of Justice, because they'll crush you."

Can the Government raid your office, ruin your business and then dismiss the charges with no compensation to you?
Yes, they can! In February, 1994, Michigan state troopers and health care investigators raided the office of osteopath Nicholas Bartz to look for evidence of billing fraud. Agents spent more than a year going through all his files, but were able to come up with only $300 worth of questionable claims in a practice that generated $750,000 a year!

After spending all that time, the cops were determined to get their money's worth. They arrested Bartz. His practice disintegrated. He ran up over half a million dollars in legal bills. In May, 1996, a judge dismissed all charges against him. Of course, there was no compensation to the doctor!

Can drug agents roust you out of bed at 4:00 am?

Yes, they can! Ask attorney, William Hunter, Jr. of Vermont who works out of his home. In 1995 seven federal agents pounded on his door at 4:00 am and demanded to see files and records. They searched the house, shining flashlights into the rooms where his three children were sleeping.

Hunter, a Rhodes scholar, had a client who was arrested the night before for drug dealing. Trying to make a deal with the police, he implicated Hunter. After sifting through his files for two years, federal investigators could not come up with any evidence to indict him on a drug offense.

But did they stop there? Absolutely not! Once bureaucrats get involved, it's hard to stop them. They have to show their bosses they spend their time profitably. So, rather than let Hunter go, DEA agents and the local federal prosecutor pieced together several unrelated incidents of sloppy bookkeeping and mishandling of escrow accounts by Hunter. They came up with ten counts of mail fraud and one of bankruptcy fraud. If convicted, Hunter faces up to 55 years in jail and $2.7 million in fines. The case has yet to go to trial.

Can you go to jail for failing to file a peanut report?

Yes, you can! Congress has granted bureaucrats the power to write regulations on securities, markets, the environment, food and drug safety. Then it practically hands the bureaucrats blank checks by decreeing that violation of these rules -- rules Congress has neither seen nor approved -- is a crime!

Congress has also criminalized the failure to keep records specified by bureaucrats; the failure to answer questions from bureaucrats, and the failure to post signs required by bureaucrats.

Under Title 7 of the U.S. Code, Section 953, any "warehouseman, broker, cleaner, sheller, dealer, growers' cooperative association, salter, crusher, or manufaturer of peanut products" who refuses to file reports "on the quantity of peanuts and peanut oil received, processed, shipped, and owned by him" can be hit with a year in jail!

Under 18 U.S.C. 4, it's a crime, known as "misprison of felony" and punishable by three years in jail, to fail to report as soon as possible any knowledge you have of the commission of any other federal felony.

Can you go to jail for a false statement on your home mortgage application?

Yes, you can! In October 1966 a New York attorney, Donal Walsh, was convicted of making false statements on a $330,000 home mortgage application. At his sentencing, the judge doubled what would have been a maximum 6 month sentence to a full year -- partly because of six other conspiracy charges on which Walsh won acquittal. An appeals court later affirmed the sentencing based on a Supreme Court decision saying it's OK to increase a person's sentence for crimes he has been acquitted of.

Can you go to jail for kiting checks?

Yes, you can! In order to cover a cash flow problem in his casino, real estate, and marina businesses, Florida businessman James Maulden engineered a check-kiting scheme tht involved 29 accounts at the Bay Bank & Trust Co. of Panama City, FL, where he served as a director. Maulden always eventually covered the checks. Regardless, he was found guilty of bank fraud and mis-application of funds -- punishable, according to his lawyer by up to 16 months in jail. But the feds also convinced the court to convict him of money-laundering because he used some of the bad checks to pay off a loan from another bank. The result: Ten years in jail. Maulden is appealing.

In the January 26, 1998 issue of Forbes magazine it was reported that in the previous month, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the money-laundering conviction and ordered him resentenced. They ruled that Maulden engaged in bank fraud, not money-laundering. They claim Congress did not intend for check-kiting to be punishable under money-laundering statues. But, Janet Reno and her Justice Dept. gestapo don't give up easily. If the government continues to oppose bail, it could keep Maulden in jail for many more months while resentencing and possible appeals continue.

Are YOU guilty of mail fraud?
You very might well be! Here are some examples of mail fraud:

The 125-year-old mail fraud statue is piece of legislation with a huge scope. Title 18 Sec. 1341 of the U.S. Code says that any act of dishonesty in which a mailed item plays a role constitutes a federal crime. The very same law was extended in 1952 to include a telephone call. So, if you lie during any phone call, you committed a felony.

Prosecuters can stretch a mail fraud charge to cover almost any arguably dishonest behavior -- even if that behavior is not specifically covered by one of the thousands of other criminal provisions Congress has legislated.

Here is a good example -- and a very, very scary one -- of what happened to Armand D'Amato, brother of Sen. Alfonse D'Amato (R-N.Y.). Armand sent legal bills to Unisys that disguised the fact that he was being paid to lobby his brother on Unisys' behalf. Prosecutors said the bills were deceptive and won a mail fraud conviction. In a very rare setback for the Dept. of Justice, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the conviction in 1994. The appellate judges found that D'Amato issued the misleading bills at the direction of a Unisys employee and that there was nothing illegal about the payments themselves. The court added, "Moreover, the government offered no evidence that access to the senator was not worth the fees paid."

The moral of the above examples is: Don't get the Dept. of Justice pissed off. Don't get the bureaucrats pissed off. And what's worse, if you don't have substantial money, good political friends, and powerful lawyers, you are going to jail!

Here is another example of injustice against an innocent person. This article appeared in the "Las Vegas Review-Journal" on Oct. 14, 1997:

Take the case of Sam Zhadanov, of Brooklyn, N.Y. The 70 year old plastics manufacturer, who no one contends ever sold a single gram of cocaine, and who is now serving FIVE YEARS in a federal penitientiary on charges of "conspiracy to transport" literally tons of cocaine. Regardless that his attorney's written advice that under previous court rulings Mr. Zhadanov could not be held responsible for anyone using for drug storage any of the small plastic vials which were among the items he contracted to manufacture. (If that were the case, then the manufacturers of plastic sandwich bags would be in a world of trouble.

But it made no difference what the courts had ruled. We repeat so you understand the gravity of this case -- It made no difference what the courts had ruled, federal drug police arrested Zhadanov anyway. They seized his $700,000 factory and his $800,000 in life savings out of the safe in his Brooklyn apartment.

With NO assets left to fund his defense, and facing the probablility of his 58 year old wife having to go on charity while he was in prison, Sam Zhadanov followed his defense attorney's advice - who had four months before been a federal prosecutor - and pleaded guilty in exchange for a government promise that half the value of his assets would be returned to his wife.

What happened next? The IRS seized that second half of the money anyway!

Just think about this for a minute. You work all your life, save money, and at the age of 70 you go to jail on trumped up charges and you lose everything! Can this really happen today in America? YES, IT CAN!

Below is a hypothetical situation which actually occurs every day to many people. You are fortunate it has not happened yet to you!

Imagine this scenario. You need to send your brother or your mother or any family member money for an emergency. You go to your bank and get a money order for $3,500. The teller whom you know and see a few times a week when you go to the bank, handles the transaction and says nothing. You drop it in the mail to your family member and go home.

The next morning at 4:00 am, you hear banging on your door. The house is surrounded by fifty armed police. You are arrested. Every bank account - checking, savings, everything - is seized. You are convicted of a felony: failure to file a "Currency Transaction Report" known as a CTR, IRS Form 4789. It is YOUR legal responsibility to do it. Make no mistake, the bank teller can collect a reward of up to $150,000 for reporting you to the proper agency. Failure to file a CTR is a criminal offense and carries a penalty of a FIVE YEAR prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.

But here is the problem. If the bank employee does NOT report you, the bank can be fined $10,000 a DAY for non-reporting. Individual employees can be prosecuted and, if found guilty of "willful blindness," can be fined up to $500,000 and TEN YEARS in prison. It is your bank's duty to report you!

It is our opinion it is nobody's business - especially the government's - what you do with your own money. We need the help of every citizen of the United States. Share this website with your friends. Call your Congressman and Senator and explain that we need to change the laws. And if they don't, tell them we'll just have to change the Congressmen and Senators.

And this brings us to the discussion about lawyers. In all of the examples above, even in our hypothetical case, a lawyer defended the accused.

The United States has only 5% of the world's population but we have 70% - over 800,000 - of the total number of lawyers in the world. Of all the lawsuits filed in the entire world, over 93% of them will be filed in the United States -- that's over 40,000 a day, or over 15 million lawsuits a year!!

Japan has 20 engineers for every lawyer. The United States has 2.5 engineer for every lawyer. Is it no wonder they have surpassed us in manufacturing?

Statistics show that one out of four Americans will be dragged into a lawsuit. More statistics show that once you are sued, you will most likely lose the case. Or you will win the case and lose all the money. American justice is heavily in favor of the litigants who win an astonishing 64% of the time!

It's time to STOP voting for lawyers. Most of the Representatives and Senators started their careers as lawyers. We don't need more lawyers to do more damage to the country than they have done. We already have two lawyers in the White House and another 40 lawyers trying to protect them -- at our, the taxpayers' -- expense. All the lawyers in the White House are in cahoots with Bill and Hillary Clinton. Don't believe for one minute that they didn't know about Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, and Monica Lewinsky. Who knows how many other women may come forward. Clinton's lawyers knew about his "zipper problem" for a long time. And these same lawyers helped Clinton to try to cover everything up -- at our expense. Don't be fooled. They should be on trial alongside Clinton. Every time you vote, cast a NO vote for every lawyer on the ballot!

Just remember ..... the law protects everybody who can afford to hire a good lawyer!

And if you think these stories are far-fetched or it really doesn't matter, just wait until it happens to YOU! A country can lose its liberties overnight in a coup d'etat. But it can also lose them bit by bit to a growing bureaucracy aided and abetted by a legislature intent on solving new problems - real or perceived - with a criminal statute.

What is really frightening is that the above events happened to everyday people just like you! The questions we have are:

What went wrong?

How can things like this happen?

How can these things happen in America?

But the most important question is: WHAT CAN WE DO TO CHANGE IT???

And we must change it! We must preserve the rights our founding fathers gave us under the Constitution.


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