Tuesday, August 10, 1999
Paper terrorism alleged at trial
County officials were sued, billed
BY SHEILA McLAUGHLIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
LEBANON — When county officials placed Larry Roten's elderly father in a nursing home in 1998, the 48-year-old Oregonia man retaliated.
The bogus lawsuits, bills and $5 million liens he filed against a long list of county officials were disturbing, some of those named testified as Mr. Roten's trial opened Monday.
“It concerned me. Somebody was suing me for $5 million, a sum I will never have in my lifetime, unless I win the lottery. I was just doing my job,” said Warren County assistant prosecutor Carolyn Duvelius, who handled the custody case involving Mr. Roten's 90-year-old father, Ambrose.
When Ms. Duvelius didn't respond to Larry Roten's earlier demands for money, she said she began receiving invoices stating: “Were disappointed you haven't yet paid. Call us to set up an installment plan.”
Ms. Duvelius was among a handful of witnesses to testify for the prosecution Monday in what is bound to be a benchmark case involving the state's fight against paper terrorism by right-wing groups.
In the first test of a 1996 Ohio law aimed at stopping such filings, Larry Roten, a follower of the common-law movement, faces 18 charges of intimidation, retaliating and using a sham legal process.
The charges involve Warren County Prosecutor Tim Oliver, Clerk of Courts James Spaeth and Paul Woodbury, who served as foreman of a grand jury that initially indicted Mr. Roten. Authorities sought charges on Mr. Oliver's behalf after Mr. Roten began making demands for money against 20 officials who were involved in his father's custody case.
Mr. Roten has contested his father's placement in a nursing home, saying county officials kidnapped the man, who has Alzheimer's disease.
After 10 years of working with the elder Mr. Roten, social workers with the Warren County Department of Human Services sued to strip Mr. Roten of his guardianship after his father was found wandering on Ohio 63 twice in January 1998.
That sent Mr. Roten to a common-law court in Arkansas, seeking redress. He doesn't believe in modern-day law.
“Basically he tries to paper people into submission with a constant harangue of paper,” Mark Piepmeier, a special prosecutor, told the jury of five men and seven women during opening statements.
Mr. Roten, who is acting as his own lawyer and often quotes from the Bible, was cut off by the judge several times after he began telling his side in the custody case and preaching his beliefs about common law.
He asked jurors to consider the Bible and the Ohio Constitution of 1802 in deciding the case.
“Common law is God's law. The devil and his angels does not like God's law. This judgment ... is going to affect your family; it's going to affect you,” he said.
Mr. Piepmeier said he intends, during the course of the trial, to pare down the charges against Mr. Roten to make it easier for the jury to render a verdict.
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