Ulric Jones: one Moor trial, one Moor conviction

[KickahaOta]

Ulric Jones is yet another intrepid searcher for the truth, magically discovering his Moorish heritage, and that the government was withholding the funds which were his birthright, in a "bank in Atlanta." Naturally, he decided that the just and proper way to access these riches was to file fraudulent tax paperwork. And he achieved a glorious victory -- the IRS sent him $280,000, which he promptly cashed. Sadly, the evil government later brought criminal charges against him, and a jury -- obviously ignorant and deceived -- convicted him of... well, filing fraudulent tax paperwork. And the Seventh Circuit recently affirmed.

Highlights from the opinion:

"At Jones’s trial, the government submitted tax filings and introduced witness testimony showing that Jones made three false representations to the IRS, and as a result, the IRS mailed him a $280,000 check to which he was not entitled. In tax returns for his trust for 2008 and 2009, Jones attested that the trust had earned $840,000 in income and overpaid $280,000 in taxes. Kristi Morgan, an IRS employee, testified that she searched the trust’s tax ID number in the IRS database and saw that the trust had neither earned income nor paid any taxes. Jones and his wife, moreover, had not paid the trust’s taxes for the 2009 tax year. After the IRS flagged Jones’s 2008 tax return as facially meritless (and requested a correction), Jones submitted an amended filing that reflected the same information as his original return. As a result of Jones’s false statements, the IRS sent Jones a $280,000 check; at trial, the government showed that this check bore Jones’s endorsement and a deposit stamp.

"Jones, for his part, testified that he created the 'Ulric Jones Trust' and mailed tax filings requesting refunds for 2008 and 2009 based on his belief that the government owed him money because of his Moorish identity. Many self‐described “Moors” believe that they descend from the rightful owners of North America (i.e., that they are sovereign citizens) and that the United States government now owes them payment. [...] Jones admitted at trial that he knew his trust had neither earned income nor paid taxes, but testified that he believed filing the returns was the proper avenue to access funds that the government had kept for him in a 'bank in Atlanta' since his birth."

[...]

"We agree with the government that the evidence presented at trial, viewed in the light most favorable to the government, shows that Jones had the mens rea to support his convictions. [...] First, to convict Jones for making a false claim to the government, the government had to prove only that he made a false, fictitious, or fraudulent claim to the IRS that he knew was false, fictitious, or fraudulent. [...] Here, the government pointed to Jones’s admissions that he falsely reported trust income to the IRS and knew that his returns were inaccurate. These admissions were corroborated by his tax returns and Morgan’s testimony."

Mr. Jones is currently a guest of Terra Haute FCI, with a release date in January 2021.

[Siegfried Shrink]

Your government seems rather casual about sending out what seem to me to be large sums of money to whoever claims some.

I could understand sending out small sums more or less automatically, but in this case it does not seem to have involved any clever forensic accounting to discover the claim was bogus and for over a quarter million dollars I'd have expected such a simple check of the records before cutting a check for the claimant.

Surely if he had been less of a deluded idiot and more a financially savvy crook, he could have vanished that money before the Gov. got rould to asking for it back, and vanished himself with it.

[Burnaby49]

Your government seems rather casual about sending out what seem to me to be large sums of money to whoever claims some.

I could understand sending out small sums more or less automatically, but in this case it does not seem to have involved any clever forensic accounting to discover the claim was bogus and for over a quarter million dollars I'd have expected such a simple check of the records before cutting a check for the claimant.

Surely if he had been less of a deluded idiot and more a financially savvy crook, he could have vanished that money before the Gov. got rould to asking for it back, and vanished himself with it.

A thought I've had for years reading about this scam. Couldn't happen in Canada but the US Seems to hand out massive amounts of cash to any idiot that asks for it. I recall a comment on Quatloos that the IRS couldn't stop this kind of scam because of their systems and the law. Maybe time to change one or both.

[KickahaOta]

What makes this case seem even more facepalm-worthy is that the IRS employee looked at the return and correctly realized that it was crap, yet the money went out anyway.

I peeked at the appellate brief to see whether it would be entertaining. It raised five issues:

Issue #1: whether the jury was unfairly allowed to speculate about the source of funds for the check -- whether they were "encumbered or unencumbered funds". Apparently, if the government doesn't specify which section or division of the IRS provided the funds, it might not be fraud. Also, the tax return alleged that the funds were in the "ULRIC JONES TRUST"; but the IRS employee only searched banking records for "Ulric Jones Trust". Yep, capitalization strikes again.

Issue #2: insufficient evidence, because of the encumbered-versus-unencumbered thing.

Issue #3: Prosecutorial misconduct, because the prosecutor's closing argument included the interjection "Right!" approximately 37 times.

Issue #4: Brady violation, because the government didn't disclose the damning capitalization issue.

Issue #5: "Whether an alleged victim need not be prudent regarding the safeguard of property". It is worth noting that this is the entirety of the brief's argument for this issue, aside from a seemingly-random citation to Brady.

Mid-brief complaint, not obviously relevant to any of these issues: The government violated the 6th Amendment right of confrontation, apparently by not specifying which section or division of the IRS spat out the check.

It is worth noting that, even to my untrained eye, the brief looks really terrible -- the argument is haphazard and scattershot, the brief has fewer than 3000 words (making it even less forgivable that the arguments are so brief and bad -- it's not as if it was running out of words), and even the formatting is sloppy. What makes this really interesting is that it's not the pro se brief that one might expect from a sovcit -- an attorney, John H. Davis, was apparently responsible for this. This may explain why Mr. Davis was disbarred by the Seventh Circuit during the pendancy of the appeal for, among other things, filing a 574-page brief in another case.

[notorial dissent]

I'm sure the COA had a good laugh over it before they tossed it, at least it had the value of brevity, something usually missing in sovcit efforts that sometimes seem to go on for ever.

[morrand]

I'm just going through my weekly trawl of the Seventh Circuit's opinions, and came to this one. The standout for me is the last sentence. Now, it's not uncommon for the court to save time by focusing its discussion on an appellant's strongest arguments, and then writing off the others with the stock phrase, "We have considered appellant's remaining arguments, but none have merit."

Here, however, the court phrased it differently: "We have considered Jones’s remaining arguments but not one has merit." A subtle difference, but still: oh, snap.