By Dan Morse , The Washingon Post

Like many people excited about a new home, Lamont Butler invited friends over to check his out. He had a lot to show them. The Bethesda mansion is among the largest in the region and featured floors of imported marble, 12 bedroom suites, six kitchens and a history of playing host to political gatherings, including ones during which Bill Clinton and Al Gore helped plant trees out back.

But the personable 28-year-old, known to wear a red fez, didn’t own the mansion; he had simply slipped inside and claimed it. Taking part in an odd and perplexing phenomenon popping up in cities across the country, Butler said the Bethesda mansion belonged to him because he is a Moorish American National. He’d drawn up paperwork that he said proved it all, with references to a 1787 peace treaty and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

Montgomery County police call Butler’s stay in the mansion, which lasted only a few hours, something entirely different from a legitimate claim: breaking and entering, fraud and attempted theft. They say it is one of the most audacious local cases in what law enforcement officers called a growing national trend where self-

described “sovereign” nationals try to move into homes they don’t own.

This month in Memphis, a woman saying she was a Moorish American was evicted after a SWAT team moved in on a 9,000-square-foot mansion she said she owned. Tabitha Gentry was charged with trespassing and burglary, but in court she denied the legitimacy of the charges, repeatedly interrupted the judge and invoked her sovereign rights.

Similar cases have occurred around the nation, where sovereign nationals have slipped into empty houses, sometimes going unnoticed for a week or two, authorities say.

“It’s going on in every state,” said Kory Flowers, an investigator with the Greensboro, N.C., police and a national expert on sovereign groups.

Police in the Washington area say they have not seen nearly as many sovereign cases as other states, notably California, North Carolina and Georgia. In terms of the property’s value, the Bethesda mansion incident appears to be unprecedented in the area.

Moorish American sovereigns get their name in part from the Moorish Science Temple of America, a religion formed in the early 20th century that preached obeying laws and had an uplifting message for African Americans: Be proud of who you are, said Spencer Dew, an expert on Moors and professor of religious studies at Centenary College of Louisiana.

But in the years since, a series of Moorish offshoots have twisted some tenets for their own gain — notably the idea that black people lived in what is now the United States long before the arrival of Europeans, Dew said.

Sovereign nationals, law enforcement officials say, use that tenet to justify the assertion that land instruments such as mortgages are not valid and that local laws do not have to be obeyed.

Moving into foreclosed or unoccupied houses is one of the more visible ways sovereign nationals break the law. The gambits are rarely successful, often ending within hours or days when neighbors call the police after noticing unusual activity or “No Trespassing” signs in the windows of the large residences sometimes targeted.

Sovereigns break other laws, too. They sometimes don’t register their cars with the local motor vehicles department, driving around instead with self-styled license tags. And they cause headaches for those who investigate them, targeting officials for retaliation by filing million-dollar liens on their properties. Police officers, judges and other public officials have had to take time off work or turn to lawyers to untangle their land records, several public officials said.

“I can promise you that every state has had their challenges with these guys,” said Carol Foglesong, a land records official in Orange County, Fla., and past president the National Association of County Recorders, Election Officials and Clerks.

States have begun making it a felony to knowingly file a false lien. Virginia’s General Assembly passed such a bill this year, and a similar measure is pending in Maryland. “They have a right to express their beliefs,” said state Sen. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Montgomery), a sponsor of the bill in Maryland. “But they don’t have a right to abuse public processes or harass public officials.”

Rashid Chaudary wasn’t thinking about sovereigns in 1995 when he moved into his new Bethesda home, which was worthy of the most lavish Washington occasions. The cosmetics company millionaire’s guests mingled on two levels. On warm nights, they could walk onto a series of limestone terraces with sweeping views of a hillside of trees.

Several years ago, after Chaudary’s children were old enough to leave home, he and his wife moved to Chicago, where his company, Raani Corp., is based. They put the mansion on the market. “If only a palace will do,” one of the online real-state listings said, “this is your home.”

It was a well-publicized target for Butler, a resident of Charles County who by last year was calling himself Lamont Maurice El, police say. Butler appeared in court last week, where he said that the charges against him are only allegations and that he is not a criminal. He also invoked his status as a Moorish national.

“I only have one free national name. That is Lamont Maurice El,” he said.

District Judge Eugene Wolfe ordered Butler held on $20,000 bond, which Butler posted shortly after the court hearing. He was released last week.

Butler’s effort to claim the mansion goes back to Dec. 17, when, dressed in a fez, white shirt and khaki pants, he presented himself at the front counter of the Montgomery office of Maryland’s Department of Assessments and Taxation, according to court records and Marie Green, the supervisor of the office. He rolled out a historic map, presented documents and requested that tax records be updated to reflect his ownership of the mansion. Green told him that without a proper deed showing a transfer, she couldn’t do anything.

Jan. 3 was a crisp 38 degrees on Natelli Woods Lane, which is lined with million-dollar homes.

Shortly before 4 p.m., a resident drove by the mansion and saw cars out front. She walked up to the front door. Butler came out and launched into a “history lesson” on his rights to the place, according to police reports. The neighbor called Chaudary, the owner, in Chicago. Several police cars pulled up, but by then, the house was empty, according to court records.

Officers found a rear door open and went inside. They found no damage and nothing missing. But there were clear signs that people had been there: The stereo was on, and there were strawberries in one of the refrigerators, party napkins in a trash bag and “No Trespassing” signs in the windows. How the people got inside — past the locked doors and alarm system — wasn’t clear.

Two days later, the alarms did go off, and police returned to find four men, including Butler, in the driveway. With no clear sign they had entered the house, officers issued trespassing warnings and let them go.

To Butler, everyone else was trespassing — a point he made in subsequent e-mails to Jordan Fainberg, the real estate agent selling the house.

“Even though,” Butler wrote, “there was no false arrest made on Jan. 5, 2013, by the Public Servant Trustee Police Enforcers for the private foreign corporate-for-profit entity styled as Montgomery County Police Department, and conversations ended on peaceable terms, I, as well as others, will be coming to the land property estate this week.”

Fainberg called the police, who by this time were amping up their investigation of Butler. They learned that he had been charged with identity theft in Alexandria late last year and with concealing a dangerous weapon in Prince George’s County for allegedly carrying a knife with an eight-inch blade tucked inside a sheath attached to his belt.

Butler also tangled with police last summer, when a Prince George’s officer pulled him over going 68 mph in a 55 mph zone. The officer cited him for speeding, driving around with a Moorish American license plate and other offenses, according to court records. Butler’s response was to demand $1.05 million in gold coins from Maryland’s attorney general, two judges, three police officers, the owner of a towing company — and all of their spouses. U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz labeled Butler’s claims “speculative and frivolous.”

By Jan. 24, detectives had tracked Butler to a house in Charles County. Officers allegedly found him holding a shotgun, but the incident ended peacefully with Butler’s arrest, authorities said.

The breaking-and-entering case involving the Jan. 3 incident ultimately could turn on his stated beliefs. The paperwork he filed with Montgomery officials carries no legal weight, authorities say. And Butler has indicated to police that he wanted the house as an embassy for the Moors and was entitled to be inside it. By doing so, he may have admitted that he broke in.

“Stand up for your Rights (Birthrights)!” he wrote on his Facebook page before his arrest. “You may be surprised that you’ve been paying for something that already belongs to you.”

Jennifer Jenkins contributed to this report.