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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

The Ragged Edge Cashing In On Fear Conspiracy Salesmen Provide Patriots With Paraphernalia - No Checks Please

Jim Lynch And Craig Welch S S Lynda Map Staff writer

Gordon Ormesher Sr. was looking to avoid a $16,532 property tax bill he didn’t believe in.

Then the Coeur d’Alene man heard about a tempting alternative.

For $300, he could join the North American Freedom Council and acquire a “certified” money order at a fraction of its face value to clear his debt.

How could he resist?

The problem is the Kootenai County treasurer’s office wouldn’t accept the bogus money order. And Ormesher is out the $300.

The region’s fierce anti-government movement makes the Inland Northwest an easy mark for people hoping to turn hostility into cash.

Aggressive mail-order houses offer survivalist tips, firearms vaults and dozens of conspiracy books and videos, including one that claims AIDS is a global plot to exterminate 2 billion people by the year 2000.

“Hear and see why AIDS was created,” reads the hype for this $15 video. “Fully documented. You will never forget this stunning presentation… Order Your Copy Today!!!”

The region also is a popular stop on the speaking circuit for traveling property rights advocates, tax protesters, militia leaders - even a woman who claims she was a CIA sex slave.

At two October gatherings, Spokane and Post Falls residents paid $10 each to hear about Cathy O’Brien’s involuntary sexcapades with world leaders. For another $20, they could buy a photocopy of her unpublished book.

This growing market now tailors its merchandise to people fighting bureaucracies, offering fill-in-the-blanks court and tax protest documents that sell for as much as $600.

Most of today’s revenge and conspiracy salesmen run mail-order businesses from their homes, culling profits from like-minded “patriots.”

They surfaced at the September “Preparedness Expo” in Seattle. Outside the lecture halls, salesmen hawked everything from Israeli gas masks to blow guns. One Florida firm’s catalog offered lockpicks, M-16 replacement parts and night vision goggles for $2,950 each.

Johnny Liberty was there too. The long-haired rebel wrote the Sovereign American’s Handbook, available for $33.

Liberty’s specialty is a $25-per-person seminar that explains how to restore a constitutional republic.

Spokane Realtor Gale Farup saw his market niche in the Seattle event: remote Inland Northwest properties for people who want to be left alone.

Farup’s Gateway Land Co. booth advertised “choice land in the heart of the best hunting, fishing recreation, clean air, forest and lake country in the Northwest.”

“I’ll go back every year,” Farup says of the expo. “The people we sold to are mainstream family people.”

Perhaps no group is better positioned to profit from anger and fear than the Militia of Montana.

The Noxon-based outfit sports a 16-page, mail-order catalog that offers 51 videotapes, 18 audio tapes, and 48 books and training manuals.

The merchandise includes:

“Big Sister is Watching You.” A 207-page, $12 book about “Hillary’s hell cats, or if you like, Gore’s Whores. They are unlike anything the world has ever experienced. Recruited and empowered by their boss, Hillary, these are the women who tell Bill Clinton what to do.”

“The New American Man: A call to arms.” A $10 book that “is the militia man’s motivational guide. … After you have read this book you will never think twice about your decision to be part of the militia.”

A $695 SubSafe to hide weapons. It’s a 4-foot-long, 1-foot-wide, fire-resistant, waterproof, fortified locking-bar box that “fits neatly between the floor joists of your home.”

The militia’s catalog concludes with this fine print:

“We do not accept checks. We have opted out of the system and therefore we do not have any association with BANKS. We cannot cash your checks so therefore we have no use for them. So, please send cash or Money Order only. Thank you.”

David Trochmann, one of the militia’s founders, says the group spends as much as $1,400 on postage in a single day to mail merchandise.

“Most of this money is going into making everybody wake up,” Trochmann says, claiming the shipping costs devour all profits.

One product line the militia isn’t selling is tax-protest material. But others are.

“Did you know that you are NOT legally required to file a 1040 income tax form?” asks a flier promoting the book “GOOD-BYE APRIL 15th!”

This book shows you how to “legally escape the federal income tax sham within 30 days! Start enjoying 100 percent take home pay - next month!”

The 392-page book sells for $40, which the promotion admits are “Federal Reserve Notes masquerading as real money.”

Coeur d’Alene’s Ormesher thought he was dealing in real money when he joined the North American Freedom Council.

“No use crying over it,” says Ormesher, who no longer deals with the group. “They just didn’t have (the) proper procedure.”

The freedom council operates out of a post office box in Booneville, Ind. Its products include:

A “foreclosure defense package” for $250.

An “IRS Lien Off,” to nullify IRS actions for $250.

A “Defend Against Eviction” packet for $600.

Freedom council leader Joe Holland appeared in court in Ravalli County, Montana, in June, where he was charged with advocating violence against public officials.

He is free, awaiting trial.

Holland, who started a militia in Indiana, clashed with Montana authorities when he defended his council’s Montana representative Cal Greenup, whose unlicensed elk ranch was raided last April.

On June 9, the Washington State attorney general’s office rang its own alarm, warning merchants and consumers to beware of bogus “check-like” documents.

Some “certified money assignment drafts” resembling bank checks were being sold at a fraction of face value as a way to retaliate against unfair taxes and other injustices.

Some people used the fake checks for more than delinquent tax bills. One man bought a $40,000 car off a King County lot and drove away before the misleading check was scrutinized. The car was repossessed.

“We’re really concerned that innocent citizens are getting victimized,” says Assistant Attorney General Narda Pierce. She says many people seemed honestly confused by the documents they bought.

But Pierce says warning potential victims is not easy, seeing how most of them don’t trust bureaucrats.

“We’re the government, we’re here to protect you,” she says, is a line that doesn’t work too well with these people.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo; photo of catalog page

The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = Jim Lynch and Craig Welch Staff writers Staff writers Lynda Mapes and Julie Sullivan contributed to this report.