A Kennesaw woman already under indictment on allegations of stealing million-dollar metro homes is back in jail, accused of trying to swindle millions from the state government and harassing the judges who restricted her to her home.
And Susan Weidman, a so-called “sovereign citizen” who claims immunity from all governments, was arrested Thursday in one of the only other places she was allowed to go — the Cobb County courthouse.
Prosecutors said Weidman forged a federal judge’s signature to try to claim a $65 million settlement in a lawsuit she filed against DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Tangela Barrie, retired Cobb County Superior Court Judge Dorothy Robinson, and the state of Georgia.
“The judgment was fraudulent and the representation she made was criminal,” Cobb Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney John Melvin told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
According to the indictment, Weidman signed the name of U.S. District Judge Charles A. Pannell Jr. on the Aug. 12, 2012, document declaring that she was owed the judgment in the lawsuit claiming that she and three fellow sovereign citizens — Matthew Daniel Lowery, Ian Justain Greye and Giulio Greye — had been falsely arrested and imprisoned, maliciously prosecuted, and denied due process and equal protection under the law.
The lawsuit, and many others like it, had been dismissed, Melvin pointed out.
“She can file any lawsuit she wants to,” he said. “She just can’t file illegal documents claiming that she won a federal judgement when, in fact, the case had been dismissed for over six months.”
Weidman was taken into custody Thursday afternoon outside a Cobb County Superior Court courtroom where she had a scheduled hearing, Cobb County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Nancy Bodiford told the AJC.
Weidman, Lowery and the two Greyes were indicted in 2011 in DeKalb County on racketeering charges for allegedly claiming squatters’ rights in foreclosed and abandoned multimillion-dollar homes in Forsyth, DeKalb, Fulton and Cobb counties, then allegedly using legal intimidation to prevent the banks that owned the houses from removing the group.
Only Weidman, a single mom and the caregiver of an octogenarian mother, was released on a $65,000 bond on the condition that she not leave Cobb County except to go to court.
She has no bond for the current arrest, and Lowery and the Greyes remain in the DeKalb County jail, according to jail officials and records.
Being the only one of the foursome outside jail, Weidman filed multiple lawsuits in 2012, naming herself along with them as plaintiffs.
The complaints she filed included one for $10 million against Gov. Nathan Deal for failing to stop her prosecution when she requested, as well as claims that Forsyth District Attorney James Dunn and DeKalb District Attorney Robert James committed prosecutorial misconduct.
Weidman and her partners sued DeKalb County for $30 million for loss of property and loss of intellectual property, and Forsyth County for $35 million for, among other things, denial of use of the law library and emotional distress.
In the name of the federal judge, Weidman ordered the dismissal of her lawsuit against Robinson, Barrie and the state to be ignored, prosecutors said.
She then filed more lawsuits against the judges.
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