Ammon Bundy Runs For Governor

[JamesVincent]

He's pro se.

I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked. Absolutely shocked that he would be pro se. I mean we're talking about someone who was running for Governor. The idea that he would not have a single attorney who would be willing to represent him in his Holy Crusade™ against the evil government controls is mind blowing.

[The Observer]

Bundy appears to have filed the bankruptcy petition in two parts, here and here. It's pretty sparse on facts.

Yes, sparse on facts, but there are a couple of acorns here and there that even a blind pig would be interested in. By the way, thanks for posting the schedules.

(1) The first thing I noted was the address Bundy claimed to be living at. The address provided does not come up on Google maps. He claims he is living in "New Harmoney" [sic] UT, but the map of New Harmony shows no such street. This is a little desert community west of the I-15 and about 10 minutes away from the Kolob Canyons entrance of Zion National Park. It's quite possible that the street is a rural dirt road that Google is not aware of having a street name. The community is agricultural in nature; Bundy is problably supporting himself and family by doing mechanical work for the farmers in the area.

(2) On a related note, Bundy says he is not paying rent. At first glance, I thought Bundy had lied on the form or revealed he owns a residence in New Harmony - after all, in the monthly expense schedule he claims that he is paying $2,500 a month in rent. But farther down on the schedules Bundy appears to be claiming his old residence in Idaho as property that he still owns. In fact he claims that his wife is living at the Idaho address. So it is not clear whether he is still making payments on the former residence. Hopefully the trustee will address this or at least one of the attorneys representing St. Luke's at the first meeting of creditors.

Does Bundy think that he can restore ownership by getting a discharge of the judgment? If so, he is going to be sadly mistaken. A discharge does not render a debt as being illegal, but only clears the petioner from ever having to pay for it in the future. Anything collected on the debt prior to the filing is not on the table.

(3) Bundy claims not to be a sole proprietor, but again, further down on the schedules contradicts himself by stating he is "self-employed" for his corporation "Abish-hisbondi, Inc." as a "manager, diesel technition [sic]." Another moment where the trustee needs to pay attention.

(4) Amazingly, Bundy admits to the fact that he tried to rescue his home from the judgment debt by selling it to his friend. This is one of those issues that Bundy apparently realized could come back to haunt him if he failed to list it as a transferred asset. That could have resulted in a bankruptcy fraud charge. Most sovruns would have probably thought they could keep it hidden from the court. But that is going to raise a red flag for the BK judge and trustee.

(5) Bundy also reveals he owns some raw land in a location east of him and north of Zion NP, in a little community called Mammoth Creek. Probably not worth a lot of money, but St Luke's legal reps should be checking it out.

(6) One other thing that caught my eye was Bundy listing a number of district courts in Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and Nevada as parties that need to be notified about his filing. The only reason I can imagine this happened is because St. Luke's legal team took some sort of action in these jurisdictions to prefect their judgment against Bundy. If not, then this may be Bundy thinking that by giving sovrun "notice" of the BK he will be able to do some pseudolaw trick and claim the debt no longer exists.

We should keep abreast of this case; I am almost certain the court will make a quick dismissal of it once they realize that Bundy is just trying to eliminate a judgment by misusing the BK laws. Most chapter 7 filings are resolved within 5 months (unless there are some serious issues that take time to address and resolve). It will be interesting to see if St. Luke's shows up at the hearing(s).

[wserra]

The data-mining that you did from the sparse petition/schedules does credit to your screenname, Obs. Hopefully the Trustee will be equally observant. Even if not, I guarantee that St. Luke's will be.

Speaking of St. Luke's, they have already appeared in Bankruptcy Court, and participated in the first creditor's meeting (there will doubtless be more). Something interesting has already happened in that regard. Usual disclaimer: although I have represented creditors in bankruptcy proceedings, I have never been a bankruptcy practitioner. Were Prof (RIP) still here, he would be the goto guy.

The Trustee's original position (as noted in the first notice to creditors) was that the estate had no available assets - probably because Bundy claimed all of the assets he listed were exempt - and that therefore creditors shouldn't even file proofs of claim. That has changed. Three days ago, the Court filed a notice to creditors that, according to the Trustee, assets may in fact be available, and that they should file proofs of claim as soon as possible, in any event no later than December 2.

Dum-da-DUM-DUM.

[The Observer]

The Trustee's original position (as noted in the first notice to creditors) was that the estate had no available assets - probably because Bundy claimed all of the assets he listed were exempt - and that therefore creditors shouldn't even file proofs of claim. That has changed. Three days ago, the Court filed a notice to creditors that, according to the Trustee, assets may in fact be available, and that they should file proofs of claim as soon as possible, in any event no later than December 2.

Glad to see that the St. Luke's team showed up for that first meeting. It is the best opportunity for a creditor to wreck a bankruptcy. Why? Because the petitioner has to show up or face dismissal of the bankruptcy. And why does the petitioner have to show? So the creditors can confront and ask him or her a lot of questions regarding their finances, assets, and other relevant info. The answers provided (or not provided) may cause a lot of problems for the petitioner if they have not got their ducks in a row.

I am not surprised that the trustee thought that this would be a simple, quick discharge of a no-asset case and advised the creditors thus not to file their PoCs. Trustees manage a huge caseload and simply cannot spend the time to ferret out the little hidden problems in each filing. So most cases sail through to that paradise of debtors, Ididnothavetopay Island, and never get a second glance.

But an example from my experience shows how quickly one question can lead to others, and eventual derailing of a BK case. I received a notice from a trustee once on a debtor who had been avoiding my attempts to talk to him. I went down to court, pulled copies of the schedules and, as I expected, found some issues that needed some serious clarification. I appeared at the 1st MoC, and got to see the debtor for the first time. He and his attorney had no idea who I was, but got very curious and a bit restless when in response to the trustee asking if any creditors wanted to interview the petitioner and I indicated that I would like to. Trustee had the debtor move up to the table facing the room and placed him under oath.

After my first question, the trustee sat straight up in the chair. By the third question, she was looking intently over the rims of her glasses while the debtor was squirming in his chair. The answers he was providing weren't lining up with what he had declared on the filing and schedules. I asked my fourth question and, before he could answer it, the trustee interrupted and told the debtor that there appeared to be some severe problems with his filing and that she recommended that he withdraw it to such a time when he was better prepared to progress through BK. His attorney stood up and agreed that this was what he would advise his client to do. After that, the two buttonholed me into an impromptu meeting so that they could arrange to get me what I wanted so I could get off their backs.

It would be interesting to see what the attorney(s) for the hospital asked Ammon while he was under oath - if he was there. Whatever it was (and I could think of one question that was probably the torpedo that ripped the hole in his case) I am pretty sure we are going to see this case heading to dismissal PDQ.

[wserra]

Significant news on the Bundy "bankruptcy" front. Two weeks ago, Bundy filed new schedules, significantly different from the originals. Most eyebrow-raising was the claim that virtually everything he supposedly (see below) owns is exempt, meaning that it survives bankruptcy and therefore is not available to creditors.

There are many reasons this was bullshit. Probably the most egregious was that by far the biggest item - the ranch in Idaho, claimed to be worth $1.5M - was, even by his own account, no longer his. Moreover, there are legal limits to exemption amounts, and venue reasons why he may well be entitled to no exemptions at all. I was going to write this up, but the last two weeks have been unreasonably busy for a certain lawyer who should have retired long before now.

And now St. Luke's has beaten me to it. Two days ago, in a nineteen-page submission, they lay out the whole sordid mess, basically describing how Bundy is more than ready to lie and cheat in order to stiff legitimate creditors. At this point, Bundy probably should try to voluntarily dismiss the entire proceeding - something to which the Trustee and St. Luke's can object. From Bundy's point of view, this won't end well, something much to be desired.

[Pottapaug1938]

I got a chuckle out of Ammon's deeds to his Ohio property. The conveyancing terms used are relics of the old days in England where the grantor of a deed to real estate had to declare his intent to something like "give, grant, bargain, sell, and convey unto the said...." And then, in the third paragraph of Exhibit 3 (the deed from White Barn Enterprises, Inc.), there are several covenants spelled out. When I was practicing real estate law, the deeds would simply state "with warranty/quitclaim/release covenants;" and those terms were held to include all of that antiquated language.

That language existed for two reasons. First, the writ writers got paid according to the length of a document, so there was an incentive to be wordy; and second, the specific words were used to trigger the application of certain statutes meant, essentially, to ensure that the king received the money, services, etc. which were his by law. A few times, I got pushback from clients because my deeds "don't look legal;" and that's because I tried to use plain and unambiguous language in anything which I wrote.

A note: in Massachusetts, deeds are identified differently than in many states . A warranty deed means that the seller isw warranting that they will defend the grantee against any defects in title, even those arising before the grantor took title to the property. Those are rare, as you can guess. Most common are the quitclaim deeds, in which the grantor warrants the quality of title only for that period during which they were the owner. Release deeds carry no warranties regarding title; but they are sometimes used for interfamily transfers of title, where there is no doubt about the quality of the grantor's title.

[The Observer]

Some things that I found of interest in the legal team for St Luke's filing:

(1) On line 6 of their submission and footnote 3 related to that line, they did not mention anything about Bundy's claim that he "owned" $1,150,000.0 of the $1.4 million fair market value of the personal residence in Idaho (he did a similar thing with the mountain property). I had noticed that earlier but thought it was just Bundy's way of showing that his lender had a security interest in the property for the difference. Of course, if there was a secured claim against the property, Bundy was supposed to list it on Schedule D. I am not sure if Bundy filed a D or if Wes only secured the C, but either way, Bundy was not supposed to subract secured claim amounts on A/B schedules. If there isn't a lender then who is the owner of the remaining portion? I hope the St. Luke team pushes on that point.

(2) The legal team did anticipate the problem that I saw in Bundy trying to claim an exemption for a property he no longer owned at the time he filed the bankruptcy. I think both of us concur that Bundy was trying to distort and misinterpret the BK code so that he could claim that a granted discharge meant he could reclaim his home. Nice work if you can get it. I wonder what sovrun pseudolawyer told him that this would work.

(3) "And the Debtor claims an exemption in “guns” worth several thousand dollars despite having publicly admitted that he was unable to legally purchase any firearms." This is in reference to this article where a bureaucratic snafu happened when Bundy tried to purchase a gun. The FBI later corrected the error (probably arising from Bundy's arrest, trial and dismissal over the Malheur occupation) but Bundy wouldn't agree to complete the required background check form and wanted to alter it with a "signed under protest" statement.

(4) At this point, St. Luke's lawyers has not raised the issue about the elephant sitting in the courtroom: 11 USC § 523(a)(6) that Wes explained. Their arguments are basically limited to stating that Bundy has failed to meet the law's requirements for proper claim of exemptions. That would certainly be enough to stop any shenanagins regarding Bundy trying to reclaim the home. But they did not ask that the court toss the entire bankruptcy. Since the only debt that Bundy is listing is the St. Luke's judgment, I cannot understand why they didn't raise that issue and the supporting law. I would think that not dealing with that is playing with fire since if the court proceeds with the bankruptcy and grants a discharge to Bundy (after St. Luke's receives any unexempted property - certainly not $50 million worth, despite their claims that Bundy is a multimillionaire - they are going to be sitting there with egg on their face.

But maybe that will be a separate and future filing.

[The Observer]

And another article about the bankruptcy has this juicy statement:

Bruce Markell, a bankruptcy law professor at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and former federal bankruptcy judge, pointed toward the high-profile case of radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was found guilty of defamation related to his lies about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. Jones filed for bankruptcy after the lawsuit, but a judge ruled that most of his debts couldn’t be discharged because they were incurred through willful and malicious injury.

“A lot of these people who are filing bankruptcy are very surprised when things don’t go their way,” Markell said. “I think Bundy made a miscalculation. Or he knows what he’s doing, and he knows this will buy him a couple months before the court gets around to dismissing the case.”

[wserra]

St. Luke's lawyers has not raised the issue about the elephant sitting in the courtroom: 11 USC § 523(a)(6)

In other words, the likely conclusion that St. Luke's defamation judgment will prove non-dischargeable. I gotta believe that St. Luke's lawyers are on top of this issue - it's the key to the whole proceeding. I don't know enough about bankruptcy procedure to know at what point non-dischargeability of debts is properly raised - it may not yet be ripe for decision. Or St. Luke's is using the bankruptcy for discovery about the nature and location of Bundy's assets . . . .

[wserra]

By the way, two weeks ago Ammon's brother Ryan and somebody named Michael Little - who doesn't appear to live where he told the Court he did, since a letter the Court sent him three days after the complaint was filed was returned "Not known unable to forward" - sued Biden, DOJ, Interior and a cast of thousands for "Declaratory and injunctive relief, a cease-and-desist order and a protective order". The complaint is 104 pages, half rant and half pure crapola. Dismissal bait.

The Force is not so strong in the Bundy family.

[The Observer]

The Force is not so strong in the Bundy family.

But the Farce is.

Or St. Luke's is using the bankruptcy for discovery about the nature and location of Bundy's assets . . . .

That very well may be the reason - perhaps they are remembering a maxim of Napoleon's: "Never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake."

But I think they are not going to find much out about Ammon's supposed millions unless he stupidly admits he has hidden assets while under oath. Ammon is not that clever of a person that he was able to put together an economic empire. Ammon gives all the appearance of the blue collar worker who know his or her way around a tool box and cam make a decent living from it. But for him to be able to grasp the importance of doing things like investing in the stock market, putting money into an IRA or picking up realty for flipping or renting would require him to have trust and faith in the government - as well as following the law. Ammon wants nothing to do with the law unless it owes him something. So if he is squirreling money away, it is probably into precious metals or coins or other small and untraceable assets. These are items that can be easily moved and hidden without government knowledge or interference.

On the other hand, if they have located some assets that Bundy failed to put on the schedule, then perhaps St. Luke's is waiting for him to commit perjury.

[wserra]

St. Luke's have been busy little beavers over the last few days. They filed three motions on Friday (Sept 20): first, a motion to compel Bundy to testify in a deposition. This motion also contains a history of Bundy's evasions and fraudulent conveyances. Second, a motion to compel Bundy's wife Lisa to testify and produce certain documents; this motion also contains a history of her evasions and fraudulent conveyances. Finally, a similar motion on behalf of the individual St. Luke's creditors for the same relief.

Unless Bundy gives up his false claims, such depositions will result in perjurious testimony - and the further the proceedings go, the less likely it is that the court will grant an opposed voluntary dismissal. This would be a hint and a half for someone capable of taking hints - in other words, someone who is not named "Bundy".

[The Observer]

After reading those motions, I tend to agree more with Wes' theory that the St. Luke's attorneys are waiting for an appropriate time to bring up the 11 USC § 523(a)(6) issue and that discovery at this point is far more important. Why? Because of these:

(1)

3. Lisa Bundy has actively engaged in prepetition fraudulent conveyances to hinder, delay and defraud the St. Luke’s Creditors.
.
.
.
4. The St. Luke’s Creditors expect that Lisa Bundy will have substantial informationabout other fraudulent conveyances.

5. Additionally, the St. Luke’s Creditors expect that Lisa Bundy will have substantial information about community property that is part of the bankruptcy estate.

This is a typical situation where a sovrun idiot drags his or her spouse into a mess that was not of their own making. I tend to have a little sympathy for Lisa since I am guessing she was more motivated at saving her home (a priceless commodity to most wives) rather than showing support for Ammon. However, it matters little since she enaged in express fraud by signing those transfer documents for the home. If Lisa comes to understand that she could be facing time in jail (which I am sure St. Luke's will explain during the deposition) she may give up and comply with discovery. She knows where all the economic bodies are buried at Chez Bundy's - including any perjury that is part of that bankruptcy filing she signed.

(2)

 Bundy ran his personal financial activities through a closely-held corporation.
 Bundy diverted personal assets to corporate entities.
 Bundy passed some assets to political supporters, who understood they would transfer the assets back to Bundy once the St. Luke’s Creditors had ceased pursuing Bundy.

Obviously, St. Luke's has some info they have developed on Bundy's assets. I glad to see that they are on top of that corporation that Bundy mentioned in passing on his BK schedules. And I am guessing that some of those recipients of other assets have been talking about it with St. Luke's. If Bundy gets deposed, I don't see how he avoids perjury.

(3)

While Bundy still refused to participate in any discovery during this period, the St. Luke’s Creditors engaged in
significant third-party discovery, principally from Bundy’s transferees, banks, credit unions, title
companies and co-defendants (“Third Party Sources”).

Yes, indeedy, the transferees have been volunteering information. And of course, parties that have no reason to not share information about Bundy's actions regarding his moving of assets. This is a veritable minefield for Bundy as he tries tiptoeing through any deposition.

But I am guessing that it won't happen and St. Luke's is hedging their bet as well:

13. The St. Luke’s Creditors are not optimistic that Bundy will perform his statutory duties. Bundy’s petition, schedules and statements all contain many fundamental defects and inaccuracies. (The St. Luke’s Creditors shall attend to those defects and inaccuracies in other papers.) At the meeting of creditors, Bundy invoked his 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination approximately 40 times in refusing to answer basic questions.

I would not be suprised if Ammon and Lisa become no -shows for these depositions. I thnk Bundy will thumb his nose at the subpoena if he fails to dodge service. Yeah, he will get picked up on a warrant issued by the court, but it has never mattered to him if he goes to jail. That is just another opportunity for him to play martyr for his band of followers. Lisa, however, may not be that deep in the Koolade barrel and might respect a subpoena. We'll see.

[The Observer]

On a separate thought, I still puzzle over the mindset of someone like Bundy who, despite his constant preaching about the evil and illegal government that he is confronting, will still file cases in the courts of that very same evil and illegal government. Why does he think, if he is correct about the government, that somehow he is going to receive "justice" (as he defines it) from the minions of said corrupt government. Why did he think that US Banruptcy Court was going to go along with his very cunning plan to discharge the tort award? Was he counting on the legendary incompetence of government bureaucrats? Did he think he discovered some type of loophole in the law that everyone else failed to notice?

A more competent wise person would have just planned to leave the country of this evil government and live in some utopian 3rd world country.

[Burnaby49]

A more competent wise person would have just planned to leave the country of this evil government and live in some utopian 3rd world country.

I've been watching You Tube videos of Canadians doing exactly that, moving to Russia because of its intolerance to gays and transvestites. Apparently this is a big deal to some of these nitwits and the very liberal Trudeau government's support for these issues was the last straw. Turns out that Russia isn't quite the paradise they envisaged.

[LaVidaRoja]

Political post deleted

[ArthurWankspittle]

Can taking the 5th in bankruptcy hearings be held against you?

[wserra]

Can taking the 5th in bankruptcy hearings be held against you?

Yes indeed. "No person shall . . . be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." Emphasis supplied.

[wserra]

They filed three motions on Friday

which the Court granted on Monday (today). The Judge may have had enough of Mr. Bundy.

[The Observer]

KNPR is reporting on Judge Thurmans granting of St. Luke's filed motions for Bundy and his wife to appear for depositions. Apparently they contacted Bundy somehow through e-mail for a response and they quote him as saying this:

St. Luke has done everything they could to try and make my family and I as miserable as possible. This motion is just another attempt.

I'm guessing that everything that Bundy has done to make his family miserable doesn't count.

And making the comment below just put Ammon into strong contention for the coveted Captain Oblivious award:

They are opposite of a Christian organization even though they carry the name of Luke, true Christians forgive.

I'm not sure if Ammon realizes his comment implies that he recognizes he was wrong. Or maybe, just maybe, Ammon is starting to realize he is in over his head.