Saturday, February 20, 1999
Warrant out for court rebel
'Sham legal process' law put to test
BY SHEILA McLAUGHLIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
LEBANON — A Warren County man who threatened to file a $5 million lien against the county prosecutor is piling more paperwork in the courts to further his cause.
As a Warren County judge issued a warrant for Larry Roten's arrest Friday, court officials were trying to make sense of documents filed on Mr. Roten's behalf to quash the charges against him.
Mr. Roten, a friend named Leon Stout, and a group called Citizens for Constitutional Justice filed an action Wednesday against special prosecutor Mark Piepmeier; grand jury foreman Paul Woodbury; Judge P. Daniel Fedders of Warren County Common Pleas Court; Clerk of Courts James L. Spaeth; the county; and the state.
“It's like a counterclaim ... to get the indictment thrown out and charge them with the sham legal proc ess,” said Robert O'Brien, an associate of Mr. Roten from Morrow.
Police have been searching for Mr. Roten to bring him to court since Jan. 25. That's when a grand jury indicted him on two counts of intimidation and four counts of using a “sham legal process,” under a 1996 law that will get its first statewide test in the Warren County case.
Mr. Roten, 48, faces up to 111/2 years in prison for allegedly threatening to file a $5 million lien against Warren County Prosecutor Tim Oliver in a custody dispute over Mr. Roten's 90-year-old father.
The controversy is rooted in a Warren County probate judge's decision last year to place Mr. Roten's father in a nursing home. The order removed Mr. Roten as his fa ther's guardian.
That caused Mr. Roten to sue about 20 Warren County officials — including Mr. Oliver — in a common-law court in Arkansas. He claimed his father was kidnapped.
Ohio's “sham” law is aimed at stopping “common-law” actions that clogged state courts after
the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City.
Authorities said Mr. Roten, self-proclaimed leader of Hand to Hand Combat Ministries in South Lebanon, follows the common-law movement, which rejects the modern-day court system and says the U.S. government has overstepped its authority with citizens.
Common law, based on old English law, is steeped in the theory that government should be run by its citizens. Followers set up their own courts and inundate the traditional court system with judgments.
Common-law courts sprouted from militia-style groups, such as the Montana Freemen, which say they adhere strictly to the original intent of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Members often seek to collect judgments by filing liens against public officials and individuals they think have wronged them.
Mr. Piepmeier said he does not intend to file more charges against Mr. Roten.
“We're not out to indict him on a hundred counts. It's the same kind of things he's been doing. I don't think it needs a response,” Mr. Piepmeier said. He said he did not fully understand the point of the action.
“I don't know what it is. There is nothing in there to me that has any merit. He cites the law of England. I saw nothing in there applicable to our case,” he said.
Judge Fedders said was aware of the counterclaim, “and I'm just ignoring it.”
Mr. O'Brien said the Citizens for Constitutional Justice is a group of common-law followers that include Mr. Roten. The group meets occasionally on common-law issues, and sometimes 25 to 30 people attend, he said.
Mr. O'Brien said he does not know Mr. Roten's whereabouts, and that he doubts Mr. Roten will turn himself in on the Warren County charges because it would go against his common-law beliefs.
“If you show up, you volunteer yourself into the court system,” Mr. O'Brien said. “If you don't object to it, then you've agreed to abide by it.”
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