Friday, March 10, 2000
Accuser faces own charges
Court filings are 'shams,' prosecutors say
BY TOM O'NEILL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
BATAVIA — A Union Township man was released Thursday from the Clermont County Jail, a day after he was indicted on 20 counts of filing sham legal documents in retaliation against authorities involved in his traffic stops.
Targets of his affidavits and claim notices include police, lawyers, judges, Clermont County and the state of Ohio.
Leonard Lutz, 66, of 3800 block of Rolling Acres Drive will be arraigned Thursday. He was freed late Thursday afternoon on $5,000 bond.
Mr. Lutz made many of the filings in connection with a seat-belt citation and no-license-plate warning issued by an Ohio State Highway Patrol trooper in 1998, and a red-light citation he received from state police Dec. 31.
Wednesday, Mr. Lutz filed a writ of prohibition in Clermont County Common Pleas Court against Lawrence H. Summers, the secretary of the treasury of the United States.
Assistant prosecutor Darrell Hawkins noted Thursday that the document was filed in a court whose jurisdiction Mr. Lutz does not recognize.
In that “cease and desist” document, Mr. Lutz refers to the county as Clermount, and the state as the “republic of ohio, Our one supreme court, Common Law venue.” The nation is referred to as the “united (sic) States of America” and is described as “inferior.”
Mr. Lutz is charged with eight counts of sham legal process, fifth-degree felonies each punishable by up to a year in prison and fine of $2,500; and 12 counts of retaliation, third-degree felonies each carrying maximum penalties of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
One of those retaliation charges, according to Mr. Hawkins, is for allegedly trying to contact a grand-jury foreman involved in the indictment of Lynne Rainelle Kirkman, 58, who was arrested in Florida on a Clermont County warrant. He is fighting extradition.
Mr. Kirkman, of Tate Township, was indicted by a Clermont County grand jury in November on 19 counts of threatening county officials with bogus paper charges that demand payment of illegal fines.
The charges stem from an August 1998 traffic stop in which Mr. Kirkman was cited for not having a valid license and an improper lane change.
Last year, an Oregonia man was convicted in Warren County Court in the first trial involving Ohio's “anti-sham” law.
The 1996 law was designed to stop mass court filings, primarily by followers of common law, who do not recognize the authority of state law.
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