Kent Hovind Trials - Final Round Of The First Fight - Installment Two

Jonathan Schwartz continues his analysis of the final day of the Kent Hovind trial.

Judge Rodgers reviews the charges as she gives her instructions to the Jury

Just the Facts Ma'am

There are a lot of emotions that come up in the course of a trial, especially by, or on behalf of, the defendants. Most of us have a love-hate relationship with the law and lawyers, but the reality of much of that they do is droll-- cut and dry. It’s based on facts. Yes, facts interpreted by those in a position of authority. Those same empowered officials however have less leeway than is popularly supposed. So if anyone is sincerely interested in the current trials and tribulations of Kent Hovind, affectionately known as Dr. Dino, than one needs to put some time in and slog through facts.

Lately, the internet is waterlogged with audio and video blogging by those that support Kent Hovind, or backers or a version they want to believe is his cause. When we started working on coverage of this case most of felt that Hovind should not be serving hard time for tax evasions and related shenanigans, and wished like many others that he would suddenly wake-up, chill out a little bit, stop being so self-defeating, and get back to teaching and preaching and his family. We still by and large feel that way.

The Internet is Waterlogged and it’s bad for Dr Dino

The truth of the matter is that as hullaballoo continues, posting and organizing in his defense, it’s been laced with hate speech and smear tactics. It’s hotly directed towards anyone with a tangential connection to the trial who might not be not convinced that justice would be served by Hovind taking a taxi home tonight.

 
Rudy Davis in particular, who has set himself up as the “ mouth” for Kent Hovind, encouraged by Hovind who reports in often on a daily basis. David has verbally attacked the subjects of my interviews, and my journalism associates, who for the most part are Christian or home schooled Baptists or Pentecostals, not atypical of Pensacola, Florida. 

Rudy Davis is Hovind’s court Jester, the eighth grader who was always getting bullied and sadly learned to love getting chased 

Davis likes attention and he likes to act out, at least in front of the camera or the microphone. He is quite pleasant in person. He’s also indicated that there are those of us on the judicial and journalistic side of things who would be better dead. He likes to shock and offend, and makes leering jokes about the prosecutor’s choice of skirts, twists names up deliberately as the self-appointed buffon of malapropos, and so on. 

Now, in certain neighborhoods that I have lived in there are penalties for disrespect. Filmmakers, of which I am one, are as protective of their crews as border collies. But there is a bigger problem than my offense, and it is directed squarely at Davis’s and Hovind’s own followers. 

Country folks don’t like those that act dumb and pander. They are far too smart for that.
Davis, whom Hovind actively entrusts as the main spokesperson for his defense, plays the phony working class hero who pretends that being Texan and country means you can sell a cause by acting ignorant. That is deeply insulting to country folk who are generally much deeper thinkers than city folk. It is equally insulting to faith-based congregations and believers who might want to join the Free Kent movement but don’t buy the shock jock routine of sneering insults and taunting innocents in the hopes of attracting a few angry allies.

What a trial is, is about a crime, whether it has been committed, and if there are laws broken. Davis and others are rapidly burning out any sympathetic feelings for Hovind on the part of the public or the judicial system, which is where the good-will capital should be. 

The Jurors are given a cheat sheet listing the Charges

The Jurors received a cheat sheet of the criminal counts offered up against Hovind and Hansen. It is to the validity of these charges that the Jury needs to make a decision. The brief began with an introduction.

The Original charges

“That Defendant KENT E. HOVIND owned Creation Science Evangelism ("CSE") and various related business entities located in Pensacola, Florida. In or about July 2006, the Grand Jury in the Northern District of Florida returned a fifty-eight count Indictment against defendant KENT E. HOVIND and his wife, Jo 0.Hovind, for various charges including failure to withhold payroll taxes of CSE employees, structuring, and impairing and impeding the lawful function of the Internal Revenue Service. On or about November 2, 2006, HOVIND and his wife were found guilty following a jury trial. That jury unanimously also found that $430,400 was subject to forfeiture.

The cliff notes continue with some detail so that the Jury learns about Forfeiture

 

“In or about June 2007, the United States District Court entered an Order Forfeiting Substitute Property, which forfeited the interest of defendant KENT E. HOVIND and his wife, Jo D. Hovind, in the currency held in a Wachovia Bank account and the following properties located in Pensacola, Florida: including North Palafox; Cummings Road; Old Palafox Street; an Oleander Road; and 116 Cummings Road. ( shortened by the author of this blog)

Immediately, Eric Hovind, (one of Kent’s son and the heir apparent), “filed an objection to the forfeiture of 23 Cummings Road, and Glenn Stoll filed an objection to the forfeiture of the remaining nine pieces of real property, as purported trustee for various alleged trusts.”



Who in heaven’s name is Glen Stoll anyway?

Throughout the trial, the prosecutor Tiffany Eggers was barred from mentioning the injunction against Glenn Stoll, who Kent Hovind had hired and was basically running all fiduciary aspects of the ministry property. For some reason it was inadmissible. But a blog is not a courtroom, so I found the press release put out by the Federal Department of Justice the year before Kent Hovind’s tFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2005
WWW.USDOJ.GOV

FEDERAL COURT HALTS WASHINGTON STATE TAX-FRAUD SCAM
Edmonds Man Uses Sham Corporation, Trusts, and “Churches” To Help Customers Evade Taxes
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Justice Department announced today that a federal court in Seattle has barred Glen Stoll, of Edmonds, Washington, from promoting a tax-fraud scheme using sham trusts and a corporation to help customers evade federal taxes. The preliminary injunction order, entered yesterday by Judge Ricardo S. Martinez of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, states that Stoll continued to promote the fraudulent scheme after the Justice Department filed the suit earlier this year to stop it. 

The court found that Stoll sold a fraudulent “corporation sole” and “ministerial trust” scheme, falsely telling customers that conducting their personal and business activities through a corporation sole and ministerial trusts, and treating them as churches, eliminates obligations to file federal tax returns and pay federal tax. The court stated that the ministerial trusts Stoll created for his customers were not created for religious reasons, but were instead used to operate secular businesses, such as pest-control and carpet-cleaning firms. The order states that Stoll sells the scheme through a website and falsely claims to be a lawyer. 

“People who buy into tax-fraud schemes are buying nothing but trouble—past due tax bills with interest and penalties and the possibility of criminal prosecution,” said Eileen J. O’Connor, Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division. “The Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service are committed to stopping the promotion of tax fraud.”

The court’s order also requires Stoll to give the government his customers’ names, mailing and e-mail addresses, and Social Security and telephone numbers. The court also ordered Stoll to notify customers of the injunction, remove materials about the banned promotions from his website, and post a copy of the injunction on that site for the duration of the case.

Interesting guy, this Glen Stoll many of us were hoping he would magically appear at this trial, it would have been interesting.

Then, the summary to the Jury, their cheat sheet, continued with this retiree who had come down to Florida to enjoy the dream of comfort and peace in Pensacola as he grew frail.



Little did Jurwaski know what a nightmare he had gotten into

“In July 2011, Anthony Jurwaski . purchased the real property located at 5720 North Palafox Highway, Pensacola, Florida, and a warranty deed was issued to A.J.” Boy, what a mistake that would prove to be as he later tried to sue the federal government for getting him in to this mess.




Hansen files liens to try to block sale of property

“ Beginning in or about June 2011, and through in or about September 2011, defendant PAUL JOHN HANSEN caused liens to be filed with the Escambia County Clerk of Court on the nine pieces of real property ordered forfeited by the United States District Court in July 2009.”

Yes, those were the famous filings by John Paul Hansen at the Escambia County Clerk’s office. They were expressly forbidden and Hansen knew that but he liked to mess with the government. Some guys like fly fishing, or golf, or spending their time as a Big Brother to some fatherless child. Not our Hansen.



Hansen files some more  liens

The court further reminded the Jurors that …“On or about September 19, 2011, defendant PAUL JOHN HANSEN caused a document titled "Quiet Title -Equitable Action" to be filed in the Circuit Court of the First Judicial Circuit in Escambia County, Florida. HANSEN's pleading identified the nine pieces of real property ordered forfeited by the United States District Court in July 2009. Thereafter, HANSEN' s civil action was removed to the United States District Court of the Northern District of Florida in case number 3:1lcv475/MCR. On or about December 2011, the civil action was dismissed.”

The Court files an injunction against Hansen: Do not cloud the title to the property, and would you hire a real attorney if you are going to try?

On or about March 26, 2012, the United States filed a Complaint in case number 3:12cv 136/MCR seeking an Order from the District Court for the Northern Districtof Florida

to declare that the liens filed by defendant PAUL JOHN HANSEN between June 201 1 and September 2011 were null and void….any agent or representative acting on their behalf take no further action to file or attempt to file any liens, notices, financing statements, and claims of whatever nature with the Clerk of Court in and for Escambia County, or attempting, in any manner, to cloud title of the properties without first obtaining the advice of a licensed Florida attorney or an Order from the Court.

A court order is a Court Order

A court order is crystal clear, and delivered to your door. With easy to read instructions. Like don’t drive on the sidewalk or pee in the pool. Hansen and Hovind were the kings of filing, Hovind topped the One Hundred mark.

Thereafter, defendant PAUL JOHN HANSEN caused documents and Northern District of Florida in case number 3: l 2cv 136/MCR. The documents and pleadings were rejected by the District Court.

Seems Hansen and his client Hovind were not paying attention. This time the court was saying, listen up or you are going to get in a world of legal hurt. But Hansen, shall we say, just kept on keeping on. Between Stoll and Hansen, Hovind sure could pick ‘em, for their incompetence an criminality. And the hits just kept on coming…

Between on or about April 10, 2013, and April 15, 2013, G.S. caused a Claim of Lien Affidavit of Obligation, with attachments, to be mailed and delivered to the Clerk of Court of Escambia County, Florida.

Hoving sues a bunch of prison guards for over a hundred dollars grand each. They were slow to forward a box with some of Hovinds paperwork. This was supposedly a way to show that there was hope for his case.


Hovind files a salvo at the title attorney.

Thereafter, on or about May 22, 2013, defendant PAUL JOHN HANSEN caused the Claim of Lien Affidavit of Obligation, with attachments, discussed in paragraph 14 above, to be mailed and delivered to the real estate title attorney handling the real estate closings for the United States with regard to the properties previously ordered forfeited by the United States District Court in or about June 2007.



5



Now it’s Hovind’s Turn. 

Now the interesting thing here is that Hovind, the original do-no-evil, hear-no-evil, and see-no-evil guy, did his prison Capo thing and got the address of the title insurance guy from his kid and passes it along to Hansen. And then he did his own thing, with the help of a real estate type doing ten for fraud, and files a Lis Pendens with the Clerk of Courts in his home town. Tsk, tsk fellas, you had about a dozen warnings not to poke the hornets’ nest.

On or about May 29, 2013, defendant KENT E. HOVIND caused documents titled Memorandum of Lis Pendens to be filed with the Clerk of Court of Escambia County, Florida, on the four properties previously ordered forfeited to the United States

The pair gets charged with plotting an attempt to block the forfeiture

Between June 1, 2011, and on or about July 1, 2013, in the Northern District of Florida and elsewhere, the defendants, did knowingly and willfully conspire, combine, confederate, and agree together and with other persons to devise a scheme to defraud the United States and for obtaining money and property by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises by the use of the United States Postal Service, for the purpose of executing the scheme and artifice to defraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1341. The purpose of the scheme was to defraud the United States and others and to obtain money and property previously ordered forfeited to the United States.

From there the counts go on, Hansen resisting arrest, Hovind acting in contempt, broken down so that the jury had the charges squarely in front of them when they would get to deliberation.


Peter J Reilly concludes:

Jonathan has promised more installments and they will be coming soon.  I should say that personally I have grown rather fond of Rudy Davis, but I have to agree with Jonathan that the antics of the Hovindicators are probably not helping Kent Hovind get free. If you listen carefully to Kent, he is still putting out the message that people don't have to be what I call "conventionally tax compliant", yet his supporters persist in pretty much ignoring that aspect of the fight.