5 'sovereign citizens' guilty of waging paper war against East Tennessee officials

Five self-styled "sovereign citizens," who reject government authority and believe they're above the law, were convicted this week of retaliating against East Tennessee public officials by filing bogus multi-million-dollar liens against their property.

Among them: Lee Harold Cromwell, the Oak Ridge man who killed one person and injured several others when he drove a pickup truck in reverse through a crowd of 200 people during a July 4, 2015, fireworks show at A.K. Bissell Park.

He was sentenced in June to 12 years in prison in that case, but not before he complicated matters by filing liens against prosecutors, the Oak Ridge police chief, the court clerk, various officers who worked the crash, and the judge, who had to recuse himself.

Cromwell's ploy apparently prompted a crackdown; he and nine others were indicted in February 2017.

On Monday, Cromwell, Austin Gary Cooper, Christopher Alan Hauser, Ronald James Lyons and James Michael Usinger were convicted on a total of 204 counts of filing fraudulent liens and of forgery over $250,000, according to a news release from Anderson County District Attorney General Dave Clark.

Sentencing is slated for June 27. Each man faces a minimum of 15 years in prison, the release states.

Waging paper warfare is a common tactic among members of the sovereign-citizen movement, whose bizarre belief system is a mishmash of convoluted conspiracy theories, discredited legal arguments and baseless rumors posted online.

Believers are convinced the U.S. government is illegitimate and that they can exempt themselves from the law by reciting indecipherable legal jargon. They ignore government rules, refuse to pay taxes, and deny the authority of police officers, judges, juries and elected officials.

Anyone who crosses them risks being buried under a mountain of phony paperwork.

When Newport police cited Lyons' bar there for selling liquor without a license, for example, he walked into the police station and tried to serve the police chief with a handwritten trespass notice, the chief, Maurice Shults, said.

When a Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper pulled over Cooper and cited him for driving without a license (sovereign citizens think they don't need them), he responded by skipping court and filing bogus liens against Anderson County Sheriff Paul White and General Sessions Judge Don Layton, records show.

Clark, Anderson County's top prosecutor, also found himself a target. He hasn't kept track of the number of liens filed against him, but he knew offhand of at least one for $4 million and another for twice that.

Sovereigns typically "look for people involved in their case or whatever legal problem they're going through, and then they file liens against those people or retaliate against them in some way," Clark said.

Clark referred the case to prosecutors in Davidson County, where the liens were filed electronically with the Secretary of State's Office in Nashville.

"I didn’t feel it was appropriate for me to be the victim and the prosecutor," he said. "That has been an issue and that may be part of the goal, to sort of complicate, delay."

State law allows liens to be filed online in a matter of minutes for only the cost of a few fees. Removing the claims, which can affect credit records for years, is more difficult.

Fortunately, Clark said, "I wasn't in a position where I was looking to buy or sell a home or refinance my home. But for people who need to file a financial statement or borrow money or things of this nature, it can be a real problem."

Clark said court clerks, mayors, police officers, prosecutors and judges were among those targeted.

"It became clear that this was a spreading tactic that (sovereign citizens) were using, and it became more than an isolated annoyance," he said.

"It became a problem where they were trying to stop the criminal justice system or hinder our ability to enforce the laws, and we needed to do something about that."

Reach Travis Dorman at travis.dorman@knoxnews.com or on Twitter @travdorman.