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Men Sentenced For Selling Fraudulent IDs

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kcur/local-kcur-884475.mp3

Kansas City, Mo. – A federal judge in Kansas City has sentenced three men for selling fraudulent credentials they claimed would make people immune to the requirements of citizenship.

The men are involved in the "sovereign citizens movement", an ultra-right wing outfit that rejects most federal government authority.

They sold laminated business cards that they claimed entitled the holders to get out of paying taxes, or even upholding US laws. The cards were stamped with the seal of the US State Department, and said "Diplomatic Identification" and sold for $450 to $2000 a piece.

There's some evidence they believed in the product. Police in Kansas City arrested David Robinson, a 67-year-old from Lawrence, when he tried to use his "Diplomatic Identification" card to get out of a traffic ticket.
Robinson drew six years and three months in prison, without parole.

The other two, Daniel Denham, a 51-year-old Kingsville Missouri man, and 53-year-old Larry Goodyke, who's from Nevada, got five years each, no parole.

I’ve been at KCUR almost 30 years, working partly for NPR and splitting my time between local and national reporting. I work to bring extra attention to people in the Midwest, my home state of Kansas and of course Kansas City. What I love about this job is having a license to talk to interesting people and then crafting radio stories around their voices. It’s a big responsibility to uphold the truth of those stories while condensing them for lots of other people listening to the radio, and I take it seriously. Email me at frank@kcur.org or find me on Twitter @FrankNewsman.
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