One People's Public Trust
I fought the law and the law won Pseudolaw |
Traveling us crazy |
The One People's Public Trust (OPTT) was a sovereign citizen derivative cult with some New Age beliefs mixed in.[1][2] It initially gained some attention from hopeful people in Australia and other countries, who sent "courtesy notices" to public bodies citing OPPT material, in the hope of getting free money; the amount of money requested was in the billions of dollars. These notices are roughly equivalent to the "three letter process" popular among pseudolaw groups, wherein a notice is sent to, say, a tax collection agency making demands; when said notice is ignored, a second letter is sent giving them a certain time period to respond, then a final third letter informing them that by failing to respond they have agreed to conditions the writer has imposed on them. The scheme falls under the category of "unilaterally foisted agreements" as described in the Meads v. Meads decision. This then fails to work, instead leading to convictions for fraud.
The OPPT believed that it terminated and foreclosed all governments in the world, leaving its belief system and leadership as the sole legitimate legal authority. It then terminated itself around April 2013, and continued on in a different form, although it kept many of the key people and ideas. The One People Community was then formed in Aouchtam, Morocco.[3] It has since fallen apart, although some individuals associated with the Community continue to live in Morocco.
After a 2018 trial in Knoxville, Tennessee, the group's founder, Heather Ann Tucci-Jarraf, was sentenced to 4 years and 9 months in prison for conspiring to launder money.[4]
The Trust[edit]
The Trust is not a separate, lawfully formed, organization as such. The Trust defined itself as follows:
“”The One People’s Public Trust itself consists of every person on the planet, the planet itself and the Creator.
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The Trustees of the Trust name themselves as Caleb Paul Skinner, Heather Ann Tucci-Jarraf and Hollis Randall Hillner, although their documents mention involvement from many Freeman veterans in the United States and other countries such as Charlie Miller, Karl Langenstein, Miles J. Julison, and others (more on these individuals below).
They registered a series of Freeman-style "declarations" from December 2012 onwards, claiming to foreclose on "all governments, major corporations, including banks". These consisted of registering UCC-1 financing statements at the Washington DC Recorder of Deeds. When their paperwork was ignored, they declared victory, in proper pseudolegal fashion. The press releases were popular in the more gibbering reaches of the conspiracy sphere.
Documents purportedly issued under their banner (e.g. 05p00 FA-01 Mar 2012) combine the most paranoid accusations against government and financial systems with the most bizarre of non-sequiturs to justify attacking these institutions. Liberally salted with Latin tags and (mostly irrelevant and inappropriate) references, they claim to have made an alternative to the currency systems in place in the world.
They also claimed that "although there are negotiations going on continuously at the highest level, the news of the existence of the Trust [One People's Public Trust] is being deliberately kept out of the main stream media by the alleged corporate System to deceive the one people of this planet as it has always done". This claim also shows the paranoid nature of the individuals involved.
Timeline[edit]
The UCC1 filings were made on 25 December 2012, and kook media begin reported that all world governments and corporations had been foreclosed and listeners were promised US$10 billion in gold and silver.
Around April 2013, in response to questions by followers asking where their US$10 billion is, Tucci-Jarraf invented the "courtesy notice" described above. Followers who attempted to use said notices, took the non-response from collection agencies as proof that the notices had worked and the natives were temporarily pacified.
When talk that the courtesy notices were failing, two parallel schemes were cooked up by Tucci-Jarraf. She would write documents that followers could take to banks to deposit a fraction of their "intrinsic value", convert it to actual currency at the bank and thus followers could finally get a portion of their promised billions. Concurrently, work started on "Project 13" which was advertised as a software that would allow followers to buy and sell goods using their "intrinsic value". The software would be set up as a phone app or desktop program where users would pay a monthly fee to create an account and "access their value".
In July 2013, Kiri Campbell, acting upon OPPT advice, attempted to deposit $15 million of her "value" into her bank account as well as writing US$60,000 in bad checks backed by her "value". OPPT originally hailed her as a hero and proof that their documents and strategies work. She was later arrested, pleaded guilty and wass sentenced to 200 hours community service.[5] OPPT ignored the setback.
Following months of failures, Brian Kelly, Bob Wright, and Lisa Harrison (the principal promoters of OPPT in alternative media) launched the OPAL tour in October 2013. They theorized that the reason that OPPT had been ineffective was that not enough people were aware of it, and thus a publicity tour would finally lead to the prosperity Tucci-Jarraf had promised in December 2012. They begged for donations to buy motor homes to drive around the USA preaching about the OPPT. Kelley promised that the motor homes will be powered by engines that run on water and that the tour will spread this new free energy technology. Despite the RVs running on water, throughout the tour, they constantly posted on their blogs that they needed more donations to buy gasoline.
The free energy technology never materialized and OPPT never mentions the failure. Kelly had most of his stuff repossessed, Bill from American Kabuki was divorced from his wife, and he moved to Morocco with Tucci-Jarraf paid for by donations from followers. In response to this state of disarray, OPPT made the decision for everyone to move to Morocco to start a commune where they can develop free energy technology and be prosperous. Of course, in order to do this, they required more donations from followers and they attempted to sell the RVs from the tour on eBay. On 2 March 2014, the One Peoples' Community launched a new website[6] which quietly disappeared. The last post to this site appeared on 22 March 2014. A member of the community subsequently posted a message on Facebook stating that there were communication issues between the people still there and that there were hardly any people remaining at the community. In July 2014, another person posted that the Community had dissolved, although individuals from the community still live in Aouchtam, Morocco; however, there are no communal projects at this time.
In May 2014, Kelly announced that "Free Energy is Here"; in June 2014, he announced that "we are so close that I can taste it" with regard to free energy; and in July 2014, he was in Spain with Blue Star "Deerwomon" and wondering how on earth he got there.[7] He announced a new project called "Even in Doubt Project", whose mission was to "inspire the world, especially younger generations, to take a leap in pursuing their purpose, living their passions, and creating global change, even in total doubt".
D from Removing the Shackles continued to blog from Morocco, although she's using a keyboard that is no longer fully functional.[8] Bob Wright also continues to blog from Morocco with hopes that he can generate income from ads incorporated within the blog.
Tucci-Jarraf posted on 9 August 2014:
THE WILL OF I AM: NOW, ALL I AM, BE AND DO I AM!!! THE WORK OF I AM: I AM!!
In other words, nothing has changed with her.
In July 2017, Tucci-Jarraf surfaced in the United States on the periphery of a group of people using a combination of U.S. Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) routing numbers and their Social Security numbers (SSN) to access their purported accounts being held by the government based on the monetization of birth certificates. In mid-July, she went to Knoxville, Tennessee to assist Randall Keith Beane, who had attempted to purchase a fully-loaded recreational vehicle (price: just under US$500,000 US) with certificates of deposit he had "purchased" using the FRB / SSN tactic. (Of course, the CDs did not have money in them because the "accounts" backing them did not exist.) Beane was arrested on an outstanding federal warrant out of South Carolina, despite Tucci-Jarraf's attempt to free him by hiring a local attorney and attempting to direct that attorney in how to purse the case. Tucci-Jarraf, along with two friends/followers, then moved on to Washington, DC. Over the weekend she released an audio message via YouTube which explained her side of the Randy Beane story and then switched into her usual "everything has been completed, it's happening!" spiel. On 24 July 2017, Tucci-Jarraf and her two followers went to the White House, where Tucci-Jarraf apparently attempted to gain entrance but were denied. (One of the followers was momentarily handcuffed on an outstanding traffic warrant, but it was non-extraditable.) The next morning, Tucci-Jarraf was arrested outside the Trump hotel in Washington, DC. A closed hearing was held on 26 July 2017, but since Tucci-Jarraf refused to sign any paperwork, an "identity hearing" was scheduled for 31 July 2017.
According to the US Attorney's office, evidence presented at trial showed that Tucci-Jarraf acted as an unlicensed attorney for Beane in a scheme to defraud the United Services Automobile Association (USAA) Bank of more than $31 million. On 1 February 2018, Tucci-Jarraf and Beane were found guilty by a federal jury of money laundering and wire fraud.[9][10]
Influencers[edit]
The OPPT was inspired by an assortment of other criminals convicted for various financial scams.
Charles Miller was sentenced in 1998 to over 12 years of prison due to his fraudulent actions involving $30 million of bad checks.[11]
Miles Julison was sentenced to 4 years of prison due to a jury finding that he filed two false income tax refund claims. Julison appealed his conviction, although he is serving time in federal prison. He is appealing his conviction on the basis that he wasn't allowed self-representation. He admitted to filing the false refund claims.[12][13]
External links[edit]
- I M Power Love Absolute - current central clearing house for the faithful on all things Heather Ann Tucci-Jarraf.
References[edit]
- ↑ OPPT-IN One People's Public Trust. Archived 7 July 2013.
- ↑ Original OPPT UCC Filings. Archived 7 July 2013.
- ↑ An Update from Morocco — The One People Community — A Call to Co-Create. i-uv.com, 20 February 2014.
- ↑ Travis Dorman, Well-known 'sovereign citizen' sentenced in federal bank fraud case in Knoxville. Archived from Knox News, 17 July 2018.
- ↑ Kirsty McMurray, 'Millionare' ripped off firms with bogus cheques. Taranaki Daily News, 4 October 2013.
- ↑ opcaouchtam.com, now defunct.
- ↑ Brian Kelly's Blog. Last updated on 19 April 2015.
- ↑ Removing the Shackles, a defunct blogspot blog.
- ↑ Matt Lakin, Sovereign citizens guilty in federal bank fraud trial. Archived from Knox News, 31 January 2018.
- ↑ Federal Jury Convicts Knoxville Man and Former Washington State Prosecutor Turned Leader of Sovereign Citizen Movement of Wire Fraud and Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering. United States Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Tennessee, 1 February 2018.
- ↑ Calendar of Conspiracy, Volume 2, Number 1: A Chronology of Anti-Government Extremist Criminal Activity, January to March 1998. Archived from the Anti-Defamation League, 24 April 1998.
- ↑ Sovereign Insanity, How weird beliefs can land you in jail. michaelshermer.com
- ↑ Bryan Denson, Clackamas man who perpetuated bizarre IRS fraud, bought himself a Benz, gets federal prison. The Oregonian, 21 November 2013.