Jailed City Worker Blisters U.S., Banks Masker Runs Water Plant, Cashes Checks, But Quit Paying On $30,000 Loan For Jeep
Richard Masker, a city employee who holds anti-government beliefs, is in jail after he railed against the banking system and refused to pay his car loan.
Masker is Sandpoint’s water treatment plant supervisor and has past ties to the Aryan Nations in Hayden Lake where he lives. He was arrested at City Hall Thursday for failing to appear in court in Coeur d’Alene. He is in the Kootenai County Jail on $25,000 bond.
Masker refused to pay a $30,000 loan for a Jeep, hid the vehicle from the bank so they could not repossess it and even denied he was Richard Masker in court.
“He has some very bizarre beliefs,” said attorney Tom Cooke, who filed suit against Masker for the bank. “He (Masker) told us the money system in the U.S. is corrupt, there is no such thing as legal tender and he doesn’t have to pay (his loan).”
About a year ago, Masker bought the Jeep in Coeur d’Alene. He made several payments on the vehicle then stopped. According to court records he began writing letters to the loan company saying he does not believe in the banking system.
When bank officials tried to repossess the Jeep, they couldn’t find it. Masker has hidden the vehicle and still declines to tell anyone where it is, Cooke said.
“He wouldn’t turn the car over to us and when he came to court he even refused to admit who he was,” Cooke said.
Court documents address him as Richard F. Masker. But Masker said there is a colon after his middle initial, Richard F: Masker. He has asked that his name be listed that way on all city documents and on his paycheck.
Although Masker doesn’t believe in the banking system, city officials said he does cash his city-issued checks. Masker has run the city water plant for six years and earns $31,200 annually.
He is scheduled to appear in court again Nov. 12. Cooke wants a judge to order Masker to tell the bank where he stashed the Jeep.
Since his trouble with the bank, Masker has written anti-government and conspiracy theory letters to Cooke. He also filed his own pseudo-lawsuits against Judge John Luster, Cooke and the bank.
“They are just these ramblings with Latin phrases and his thumbprint on them,” Cooke said.
Sandpoint Mayor David Sawyer said he could not comment on Masker’s legal troubles. The city is making arrangements to have someone else run the water plant in Masker’s absence.
Masker touts himself as a conspiratologist, or someone who studies secret societies and shadow governments.
Masker says he does not believe the Jewish Holocaust occurred, and for a time he lived at Richard Butler’s Aryan Nations compound, a haven for white supremacists in Hayden Lake.
In 1992 Masker also tried to get license plates that read “ARYAN 88.” In neo-Nazi circles, 8 stands for the eighth letter of the alphabet and 88 means Heil Hitler. The state declined to issue Masker the license plates.
Also in 1992, Masker was given a verbal reprimand by the mayor of Sandpoint. Masker wrote a letter with racist overtones to a water association and included his city business card in the letter.
Before coming to Sandpoint, Masker was fired from a similar job in Corvallis, Ore. He was terminated after he mailed Hitler birthday cards to instructors at Oregon State University. Masker sued the city and the case eventually was settled out of court.
, DataTimes