Bill would curb paper terrorism

Monday, May 12, 2003 | 9:13 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Anti-government groups are using a new tool nicknamed "paper terrorism" to harass public officials by filing false liens and court judgments against them, a Senate committee was told.

The documents cloud the titles of homes and land of public officials. They have no knowledge of the lien until they go to sell their property.

Kristin L. Erickson, a deputy district attorney in Washoe County, said when the bogus documents are submitted to county recorders, the county recorders have to file them.

The victims have no idea the liens or fake judgments are recorded, "but when they sell their home they find a $28 million lien against them," Erickson told the Senate Government Affairs Committee Friday.

Targets of these liens can't get title insurance, she said.

Erickson and other Washoe County officials asked the committee to approve Assembly Bill 459 that would authorize county recorders to reject the recording of these documents. If the recorder denies acceptance of the document, the individual can go to court to overturn the administrative decision.

The bogus liens and fake court orders can be produced on a home computer, Washoe County Recorder Kathy Burke said.

In one case, a person convicted of a felony filed a $12 billion lien against the prosecutor and the judge who sentenced him, county officials said.

A federal bankruptcy judge had a bogus lien placed on his property in Lyon County, Burke said.

"He had to get a court order to get the lien off," she said.

Many liens and false court judgments have been filed against Internal Revenue agents, apparently by people dissatisfied with their treatment at the hands of government, officials said. Some of the documents that are supposed to be court judgments have never gone through the judicial system, Burke said.

Erickson said as laws are enacted in other states to prevent "paper terrorists," perpetrators are coming to Nevada to continue to file their false documents because the state law says: "A county recorder shall not refuse to record a document on the grounds that the document is not legally effective to accomplish the purposes state therein."

Some documents presented are "blatantly false," but Nevada's county recorders have no discretion to reject them. And once they are filed, the liens have the official stamp of approval.

The committee did not take action on the bill, which would stop a person from refiling a document that has been found to be false, unless it has been modified.

The bill also says that a person who wins a court appeal to get a document filed would be entitled to recover any fees he paid the recorder. It also protects the recorder from suit if he or she acted in good faith in denying recording of a document.