Twelve self-claimed sovereign citizens were indicted Tuesday on charges that they stole millions of dollars worth of properties throughout North Georgia, including mansions in DeKalb County, a strip mall in Buckhead and homes in Gwinnett County.
A copy of the indictment obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution alleges the suspects committed a racketeering scheme last year to take over properties in DeKalb, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry, Newton, Fayette, Spalding and Richmond counties.
The sect operated out of a $1 million home on South Goddard Road near Lithonia, DeKalb Deputy Chief Assistant Attorney John Melvin said.
“Others have done individual indictments, but DeKalb is the first in the state to take this on in this manner,” Melvin said Tuesday. “This is the first time we’ve taken an entire cell utilizing RICO indictments.”
The suspects all call themselves sovereign citizens. The FBI calls them anti-government extremists and has posted them on their domestic terrorism watch list.
The sovereign citizens believe they are immune to state and federal laws and that people – not banks – are the only titleholders who can own land. It is that doctrine they use in taking over properties.
But prosecutors say this is a crime. The indictment alleges the 12 engaged in a pattern of racketeering, using theft by taking, burglary, mortgage fraud and false writings.
Prosecutors say the alleged squatters broke into vacant homes and either signed or notarized quitclaim deeds for themselves. They then filed the phony deeds with the courts. They also filed liens and lawsuits against police, prosecutors, judges or anyone who threatened to have them removed, Melvin said.
“They are an economic threat to DeKalb because they are breaking into people’s houses, houses that have been foreclosed on,” Melvin said. “Once they file quitclaim deeds, it puts a cloud on the property and the bank has to spend energy to remove that cloud.”
In one instance, the suspects stole ownership of a $13 million strip mall on Peachtree Road in Buckhead and attempted to collect rent from the tenants, prosecutors said.
In north Atlanta, they allegedly had a locksmith change the locks on a mansion on Windsor Parkway and threatened to file a lien against the real estate agent’s personal property if she didn’t take down her for sale signs and turn off the security system.
In Gwinnett, several of the suspects e-mailed extortion threats to obtain a Norcross home, the indictment alleges.
“In one situation they tried to evict the actual resident and told them they had 24 hours to leave or they would start the eviction process,” Melvin said. The resident called police.
Two of the suspects, Corey Bernard Freeman and Eliyshuwa Yisrael, are in the DeKalb County jail. Three of the suspects, Gregory Ross, Linda Ross and Richard Terence Jenkins, were in jail and remain on bond.
Arrest warrants have been issued for seven other suspects: Jermaine Eric Gibson, Joseph Dion Lawler, Kenith Benaiah Rey, Wylissa Yvette Lawrence, Jonas Francois, Davis B. Graham and Arthur Sykes Jr.
This sect is not tied to any other crimes, Melvin said, but there are thousands of other so-called sovereign citizens in Georgia and across the nation.
“We’ve been contacted by other agencies even outside Georgia to look for a model on how to take these people down,” he said.
Although all of the suspects were born in the U.S., most of them have created their own drivers’ licenses and other documents with seals from bogus nations they make up, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors credit the cooperation between law enforcement across north Georgia, including police, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and FBI, which spent about eight months combing property and court records.
“This genre of squatters has been on an uptick since the economic decline,” Melvin said. “You are allowed to believe whatever you want to believe, but when you start to commit crimes, that’s when we step in.”
Who are they?
The FBI says the national sovereign movement has been around for decades and has ties to the Nuwaubians, a black supremacist group that was started near Augusta. Nationally, sovereign citizens, which originated as a white supremacist group, have been connected to multiple insurance fraud and tax evasion scams, along with some violent crimes.
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