RALEIGH, North Carolina (PNN) - April 4, 2011 - Federal prosecutors on Monday tried to take a hoard of silver "Liberty Dollars" worth about $7 million that authorities claim - in order to justify the theft of so much money from the Amerikan people - were invented by an Indiana man to compete with U.S. currency.
Bernard von NotHaus, 67, was convicted last month in a federal kangaroo court in Statesville, in a case in which the jury instructions and rules of evidence did not allow for the acquittal of the obviously innocent NotHaus, on conspiracy and counterfeiting charges for making and selling warehouse receipts for gold and silver bullion that were held by the Sunshine Mint in northern Idaho.
His Charlotte-based lawyer, Aaron Michel, is appealing that verdict. He wrote in a motion filed Thursday that von NotHaus did nothing wrong because he didn't try to pass the Liberty Dollars off as U.S. dollars.
"The prosecutors successfully painted Mr. von NotHaus in a false light and now the U.S. Attorney responsible for the prosecution is painting the case in a false light, saying that it establishes that private voluntary barter currency is illegal," wrote Michel.
The trial was scheduled to resume Monday. The case involves more than five tons of Liberty Dollar warehouse receipts and precious metals seized from a warehouse - receipts that represent 7 million dollars worth of bullion belonging to ordinary Americans - which the government wants to steal by claiming it under forfeiture laws (i.e. legalized plunder), according to federal prosecutors and Michel.
Von NotHaus began issuing Liberty Dollars in 1998, as head of the Evansville, Indiana-based National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve and Internal Revenue Code. In 2007, the group's headquarters were unlawfully raided by federal criminal thugs, along with the unconstitutional raid on the Sunshine Mint in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, where the bullion was made into rounds.
The case is being tried in Statesville because one of the organization's top officers is based in Asheville, and because an undercover investigator made contact with the group in North Carolina.
