Kent Hovind has finally followed through on the lawsuit that he promised to bring to seek compensation for what he sees as unjust imprisonment and theft of his property. He had always indicated it was going to be a lot, but frankly I hadn’t expected anything nearly $536,041,100. I would have thought forty or fifty million would have been enough.

That’s Quite A Number

The lawsuit relates to a 2006 prosecution for structuring, failure to withhold and pay payroll taxes and interfering with the administration of the tax laws. Hovind’s long suffering first wife Jo ended up with a year in federal prison. Hovind himself was not release till 2015 having served over eight years.

He or his ministry also forfeited a substantial amount of property.

The Players

The plaintiffs are Kent E. Hovind and Paul John Hansen, as trustee for Creation Science Evangelism (a non-statutory trust). Paul John Hansen was Kent’s co-defendant when he was prosecuted in 2015 (near the end of his 2006 sentence) for actions he took to affect the title of property that had been seized. I covered that story pretty intensely. Here is a summary with some video.

Kent was saved from additional prison time by some sharp legal work and a bit of juror nullification, but Hansen ended up with an 18 month sentence in August 2015. Ten of the months had already been served.

The defendants are the United States of America, Margaret Catharine Rodgers, the Estate of John David Roy Atchison, Michelle Heldmyer, Scott Schneider and Alan Stuart Richey. Rodgers was the judge in both the 2006 and 2015 case. Atchison and Heldmyer were US attorneys involved in the prosecution. Scott Schneider was an IRS CI agent and Alan Stuart Richey was Hovind’s attorney in the 2006 trial.

Some Background

Kent Hovind is an Independent Baptist minister who has made the embrace of Young Earth Creationism a hallmark of his ministry. Young Earth Creationism is the notion that there is scientific support for a hyper-literal reading of the Book of Genesis. When you sum up all those begats and tack on seven days, the world is just a bit over 6,000 years old.

Kent explained it near the opening of his most recent video. He usually opens with something similar:

“We’re the folks at Dinosaur Adventure Land who believe the Bible is true and the evolution theory is dumb. God made everything in six days. Dinosaurs always lived with man. We believe the evolution theory is the dumbest and most dangerous religion in the history of the world!”

In the opening he also gives us his view on current events, which is consistent with the perspective he has put out since the nineties.

“Riots going all over the place. This is all part of a political move, because it is election year. You watch. There’s a much bigger plan here. First the virus and now the riots. It’s all part of a ——- Get ready for the tribulation time.”

If you are willing to sacrifice three hours of lifespan, you can get a full exposition in Hovind’s classic The Dangers of Evolution.

Hovind also advocated unconventional views on the income tax. That was the next video in his series CSE 103 Class 6. That one is a lifespan investment of just over an hour and a quarter, but just a bit after the 2:10 mark you will hear Hovind say that he has not filed income tax in 28 years.

In his innocence narratives and his protestations of not being a protester Hovind does not mention this video and his admission of not filing, because no law in his view required him to.

Over time his argument would shift to having taken a vow of poverty with everything being owned by CSE, the “non-statutory trust”. For what it is worth whenever the term “non-statutory trust” occurs in the body of tax authority, it is a protester case that does not end well for the taxpayer.

Ironically had Hovind organized CSE as a conventional 501(c)(3), he could have managed things to pay very little in the way of income tax. The new CSE that runs the Lenox Dinosaur Adventure Land was organized as a 501(c)(3) and now has church status relieving it even of the Form 990 requirement.

The Complaint

The complaint indicates that rights were violated under the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, Tenth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments and that the acts were committed under color of state and federal law in bad faith with malicious purpose and willful disregards of the plaintiff’s rights.

We then start moving into what you might call Paul John Hansen law from there. For example there is this thing about “land of the United States”

The Enclave Argument

Part of the complaint is that the defendants were imposing United States “written law” in land that is not evidenced as being land of the United States as defined in Article One, Section 8, Paragraph 17 of the Constitution of the United States.

This a sovereign citizen sort of argument. The paragraph cited reads:

“To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;”

The reasoning seems to be that since the United States has exclusive jurisdiction in those places, it does not have any jurisdiction in the rest of the country. Hansen would add other than by contract. This argument is echoed at the very end of the complaint, before the appendices in footnotes referencing addresses that lets us know that 32503 and 36475 (zip codes for Pensacola FL and Repton AL respectively) are:

“…. only for mailing purposes, the subject land is not evidenced as being land ceded, or purchased, by the United States of America, thus not a federal zone.”

Another Enclave Enthusiast

In Shadowlands- Fear And Freedom At The Oregon Standoff, Anthony McCann goes into the “enclave argument” as it was argued by the Ammon Bundy.

There is a rather fascinating Bundy/Hovind connection. There were two Bundy dramas. There was the ranch standoff focusing on Cliven and the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge where Cliven’s son Ammon stood out.

The ranch was a 2014 thing and the occupation was in 2016 and they both absorbed a lot of attention from extreme right wing alternative media. In between them was the Hovind Hansen trial in 2015, which also got a lot of attention in those circles.

One of the more zealous Hovindicators was broadcaster Peter Santilli. He made a threatening on-air call to Judge Rodgers office. The original was taken down, but it is preserved in this brief piece on the trial by Interlock Media starting at 4:13.

Pete Santilli would go on to be a sort of embedded report at the Malheur occupation. Santilli faced charges for his role in both standoffs. His call to Judge Rodgers was a negative factor in considering whether he should be released prior to trial.

The Rest Of The Legal Arguments

Hovind has two advocates promoting his innocence narrative with two different approaches. Brady Byrum is working on generating public support for a pardon by President Trump. People laugh at me, but I don’t consider that one absolutely impossible. Our President is nothing if not unpredictable and at least in some circles a Hovind pardon could be viewed as a strike at the deep state.

Paul John Hansen, on the other hand, is focused on litigation with this being the second suit filed within the last year. I covered the first one here. You can get a fuller course in the Hansen School of Law in this video from last year where Kent speaks with both Byrum and Hansen.

In the video when it comes to damages Hansen estimates that Hovind should get between $30 million and $60 million. I guess the stakes have been raised.

How Not To Pick Advisers

Also noted in the video is what a poor job Kent’s lawyer did for him in 2006. As noted Alan Stuart Richey is one of the defendants in this complaint. This brings up something a bit odd about who Hovind relies on for his advice.

One of things that Kent mentions sometimes about his 2015 prosecution was that the property filings that sparked the prosecution were on the advice of a cellmate who was a legal genius. Now he has litigation spearheaded by a co-defendant, who was convicted when Kent wasn’t.

One of my accomplishments that I take just a bit of pride in was passing all four parts of the CPA exam on the first sitting. Back in the day about 15% of people who sat for the exam achieved that. One of the things I did not do was take advice from people who had lots and lots of experience taking the exam, because they had, you know, failed.

It strikes me that taking legal advice from a cellmate or a co-defendant who is convicted would be kind of like that. Just saying.

The Touching Part

Hovind’s affidavit discussing the amount of damages kind of tugs at the heart strings along with a bit of TMI. An example of the latter is that he and his then wife Jo were both virgins when they were married in 1973, which precedes the account of her being arrested at gunpoint and not being allowed to get properly dressed.

“Due to her being terrorized by the entire ordeal she stopped writing me or visiting me in prison. Upon my release from prison she made me sleep in a separate room until she filed for divorce.”

He then goes on about being alienated from his son and daughter. They have not brought the grandkids up to visit in Lenox in the last five years even though it is just seventy miles away and they don’t invite him down to Pensacola.

I have no doubt of Hovind’s sincerity here, but I have to say he might reflect that perhaps the alienation might have a lot to do with how he has behaved post release. I touched on that a bit when I met up with Eric Hovind last year.

Next Step

Hovind critic Robert Baty gave me a heads up on the most recent development in the case. US Magistrate Judge Hope Thai Cannon has issued an order for them to get moving on serving the defendants with notice. The first step is to prepare summonses to go to the clerk for signature. They need to do that by next week.

This stuff is pretty routine, but it can be a little tricky. I really hope the case does not fall apart early from not following through on administrative steps.

Comments

I can usually get something from Kent’s adviser Ernie Land, but he has not gotten back to me yet.

Michelle Heldmyer, one of the defendants wrote me;

“The suit will be dismissed quickly, for a number of deficiencies. Hovind has been trying to ruin my life for 15 years. Hasn’t succeeded yet.”

I couldn’t get anything for attribution from my legal brain trust, but their off the record comments indicate that the case is pretty hopeless.

Other Coverage

As far as I can tell there has been no media coverage. Those folks that Mary Tocco (Kent’s second wife) characterizes as “Obsessed internet fanatics dedicated to revealing to the world their perception of Kent Hovind as fraud and con-artist” on Robert Baty’s Kent Hovind’s Worst Nightmare! are sure to be chattering about the case.

One of Kent’s more fanciful claims is that Baty, who retired from the IRS, has been called out of retirement to harass him. At the risk of offending the group again, I will repeat the ways in which I admire Kent Hovind.

He has a very strong work ethic and a determination to live a purpose-driven life. Much of the counsel he gives people about how to live their lives is good counsel – work hard, avoid drugs and alcohol focus on worthwhile things rather than entertainment.

I greatly enjoyed my visit to Dinosaur Adventure Land last year which including riding shotgun in a an all-terrain vehicle with Doc Dino at the wheel. I think that Young Earth Creationism is generally a pretty harmless delusion. When I realized it was Paul Hansen I had run into early in the visit, I had a bad feeling.

The advice on the visit still stands:

“So visit DAL and have a good time. It might be wise to go for the Grandma tour. Try to be kind and capture what is worth appreciating. Just don’t go there for tax and legal advice.”

Based on a recent incident which is easy to find out about but I am leaving alone, keep a close eye on any kids you bring along.