Beware screwball defenses

[Zelda50]

Judge admonishes jailhouse lawyer
By DAVE KOLPACK Associated Press Writer , The Associated Press - FARGO, N.D.
A Guyana man charged with investment fraud refused to listen to his court-appointed attorney and instead cited commercial law and religious passages in his federal criminal case. He wound up getting a longer prison sentence as a result.

And so did several other defendants Neville Solomon met in jail and counseled on his unorthodox defense tactics, said a federal judge who sent them all to prison.

"This is hopefully the last in a long line of sad cases," U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson said while ordering Solomon recently to serve more than seven years in prison for investment fraud.

"A whole bunch of people wound up in prison for a lot longer time than they should have and there's nothing the court can do about it," the judge said.

Solomon, 67, was convicted earlier this year on three counts of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States. Authorities say he bilked investors out of millions of dollars in a pyramid scheme.

Prosecutors asked for a sentence of at least 121 months in prison, based on the amount of money involved and what they perceived as a lack of remorse. Solomon's court-appointed attorney, Johnathan Judd, asked for 37 months, based on his client's age, heart condition and no prior criminal history.

Erickson sentenced Solomon to 86 months.

"Mr. Solomon is clinging to a defense that is not a defense," the judge said.

Solomon and the others filed dozens of handwritten documents in their cases citing provisions from the Uniform Commercial Code, which is meant to help unify state laws regarding sales and commercial transactions. In verbal exchanges in the courtroom and in documents filed in their defense, Solomon and other defendants repeatedly invoked the phrase, "I accept your offer and return it for value."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett Shasky called it "commercial paper contract type stuff" that he couldn't explain. Shasky said he didn't research the code because it was "gobbledygook that made no sense" to the case.

It soon became clear that Solomon was spreading his legal advice to fellow inmates, Shasky said.

"We never saw these documents until he showed up in our local jails," Shasky said. "Then all of a sudden they're coming in left and right."

Link to rest of article:
http://www.thedickinsonpress.com/eve.../id/D9GOE2L83/

[Fresh Start7]

I met some people once who bought into this stuff and it landed them in prison too.

My favorite is that people don't have to pay their taxes because Congress never ratified the U.S. Tax Code.