Sovereign Citizen ‘Governor’ And ‘Christian Princess’ Convicted Of Tax Fraud
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An Alabama couple who considered themselves sovereign citizens — who required their tenants to pay rent in silver coins and buried $350,000 worth of gold coins in their backyard — were convicted of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and three counts of tax evasion on Friday.
Monty Ervin and Patricia Ervin, owners and managers of Southern Realty, amassed ‘hundreds of investment properties over the last decade, receiving more than $9 million in rental income,’ but paid nothing in federal income taxes, according to the Justice Department.
First confronted by the Internal Revenue Service in 2006, the Ervins proclaimed that they weren’t subject to federal of state law. When the IRS started talking to people they knew, Monty Ervin allegedly sent correspondence to the IRS threatening a special agent with ‘jail time,’ a ‘money penalty’ and ‘dismissal from service.’
Their letters to the IRS — in which Patricia refers to herself as ‘a sovereign Most Christian Princess as certified by His Most Christian Majesty, Prince George, the Arch-Treasurer for ‘The United States of America’ in the Treaty of Paris of 1783’ and Monty declares he’s ‘not a numbered member of the communitarian welfare benefit trust called Social Security Administration’ — are embedded below:
