Friday, June 01, 2012

Sovereign Citizen Charged w/ Burglary, Vandalism, Using Sham Legal Process In Attempt To Scare Cops In Alleged Vacant F'closed Mansion-Snatching Case

In Pickens County, South Carolina, the Anderson Independent Mail reports:
  • Garnett Radcliff Campbell Jr. is accused of drilling through one of about a dozen locks at a $2.6 million foreclosed home in Sunset in order to claim it as his own. Campbell installed a new lock and put a notice on the door which claimed that theMoorish American Society of Philadelphiahad seized the property in accordance with international law.

  • The home he allegedly attempted to seize is a five bedroom, six-and-a-half bath, 10,000-square foot waterfront retreat on 3.5 acres in the Cliffs Keowee Vineyards community.

  • According to the printed notice posted on the door, any law enforcement officers who came onto the property — on White Violet Way — would be trespassing and subject to being sued, according to a statement from the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office.

  • Deputies were not persuaded by the paperwork. [...] Campbell has been arrested on charges of burglary, vandalism and attempting to intimidate law enforcement by using a sham legal process.
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  • The home listing is held by Scott Garland, a Realtor and appraiser with Community First Real Estate. Regions Bank and the real estate firm were advised by the FBI in advance that the secluded home could be targeted by the sovereign citizen group.

  • Garland said he initially was skeptical that anyone could penetrate the security at the Cliffs community or would be so brazen to target the upscale home. He checked the home following the warnings and didn’t notice anything. A week later while making his regular rounds, Garland saw the notice on the door. “I was shocked at first they made it in, had posted their signs and moved in their items,” he said.
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  • FBI agents have spoken with Pickens County deputies on several occasions, warning them of the dangers that sovereign citizens could pose, [Assistant Sheriff Tim] Morgan said. “The sovereign citizen movement, in all its various forms, poses a clear threat to the safety of our community because it’s an attempt to disengage from the rules which govern everyone,” Pickens County Sheriff David Stone said in a statement. “A person who fervently believes that he is not subject to the law, and can essentially dictate his own law, is potentially very dangerous.”

  • The Moorish National Republic is a sovereign citizen group, according to web sites. Several of its offshoots, including the group Campbell claimed to belong to, have been categorized as domestic terrorism groups by the FBI, according to a statement from the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office. [...] He prefers to go by the name “Noble Yeshuah B. al Nina El,” according to the Sheriff’s Office.