'Sovereign Citizen' Sentenced To 7 Years For Filing Phony $100 Billion Liens
(STMW) -- A woman who filed phony $100 billion liens against federal officials in revenge for her brother's drug conviction was sentenced to 7 years Tuesday by a federal judge who said her goal was to "create havoc," the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting.
Cherron Phillips, 44, a mother of two, targeted four judges, including former chief U.S. District Court Judge James Holderman, and six other law enforcement officials, including former U.S. Attorney Pat Fitzgerald.
She claimed she was exempt from federal law and previously tried to gum-up her case with a series of nonsensical self-penned legal documents.
The judge who sentenced her Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Michael Reagan, had previously referred to her as a "paper terrorist."
Evidence at her trial this summer showed that Phillips began using the meritless legal arguments of the so-called "sovereign citizen" movement in 2010, after her brother Devon Phillips pleaded guilty to dealing cocaine.
The movement, which denies the authority of the federal government, has spread on the Internet and in the prison system and has increasingly and without success been invoked in Chicago courtrooms.
Bank robber Jose Banks — who led a daring, widely publicized escape from the 17th floor of the Metropolitan Correctional Center last year — is among its followers.
And Phillips used one of the movement's tricks when she filed phony "maritime liens" against a dozen officials involved in her brother's case, claiming each owed her brother $100 billion.
All 12, including Holderman and Fitzgerald, testified for the prosecution during the bizarre trial.
She had faced up to 10 years behind bars on each of 10 counts, though sentencing guidelines called for a prison term of around 78 months — ironically the same time her brother served for his drug conviction, her attorney Lauren Solomon said earlier this year.
Solomon had asked for a sentenced of probation, calling the case "sad." She said during her closing argument in June that Phillips' crimes were so "patently absurd" that they were akin to "trying to pass Monopoly money and being charged with counterfeiting."
But in his closing arguments at the trial, prosecutor Nathan Stump said the series of phony liens Phillips filed "was not justice, it was vengeance. It was petty, it was sneaky, it was a cheap shot."
Though none of the 12 victims Phillips targeted was seriously inconvenienced by the liens, the crime had "shocked" at least one judge and was "no laughing matter," he said.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2014. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
