‘Freeman’ Finally Agrees to Use Public Defender

After years of declaring himself a “freeman” with no ties or responsibility to federal, state and local governments, Timothy Paul Kootenay accepted one of the government’s free attorneys Wednesday as prosecutors added two more felony forgery charges to the six he already faced.

Kootenay, 35, was arrested in Montana on Easter Sunday and extradited to Ventura County, where he has remained in jail and, until Wednesday, refused the offer of a public defender. “He may have been misguided in his belief of our legal system,” said defense attorney Neil B. Quinn, just appointed to the case. “Maybe he is now acceding to the learning process.”

“The ironies just abound in this case,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Mark Aveis said.

The Ventura County Grand Jury indicted Kootenay, also known as Timothy Paul Schultz, in March on six felony charges of using fictitious money orders to buy six semiautomatic weapons via mail order. Investigators said Kootenay, a Thousand Oaks resident, used money orders created by the militant anti-government group called the Family Farm Preservation.

He is scheduled to be arraigned on the charges today. He remains jailed in lieu of $25,000 bail.

The tall, beefy tree trimmer has spoken openly and often of his anti-government views. He claims to have no Social Security card or driver’s license and said he does not pay taxes.

The Franchise Tax Board of California has filed a $1,377.63 lien against Kootenay in Ventura County alleging that he failed to pay state income tax in 1988 and 1989, assessor’s records show.

Kootenay sent court officials a rambling, 21-page document last year after he was cited for riding a motorcycle without a helmet. The document, quoting everything from the Bible to the Magna Carta, spelled out his political beliefs.

In the document, he said he renounces his U.S. and California citizenship. Instead, he claims to live in the “Second Judicial District, Rancho Santa Rosa Township.”

Kootenay is part of a loose band of anti-government protesters who follow the teachings of Montana freeman LeRoy Schweitzer and Palmdale resident Elizabeth Broderick, who are accused of selling bogus money orders written against frivolous liens.

Both Schweitzer and Broderick are in federal custody on forgery charges. And investigators are hunting for another Ventura County protester suspected of following their teachings.

Prosecutors last week filed charges against Toby J. Chanel of Westlake, accusing her of using bogus money orders signed by Schweitzer to bail out of jail and pay court fines.

Prosecutors said Chanel used three bogus checks to resolve two traffic-related cases last year. Investigators are unsure of her whereabouts, and she remains a fugitive.

She and Kootenay are among the dozen or so Ventura County residents under investigation for allegedly using the bogus money orders in what Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury has dubbed the “scam du jour.”

Broderick appeared in federal court in Los Angeles on Wednesday, but refused to accept a court-appointed lawyer as she faced charges of mail fraud and conspiracy for an alleged $1.5 million phony check scheme. Instead she asked that a Tucson tax resister be allowed to serve as her unlicensed attorney.

U.S. District Court Judge Dickran Tevrizian declined that request and advised Broderick to “stop playing games.” Broderick urged the judge to read the 13th Amendment, which she claims bans attorneys as foreign agents.

“I need to have the same level playing ground that the prosecution has,” Broderick said in court, “ . . . even if I have to take it all the way to the Supreme Court.”

Replied Tevrizian, “I think you are going to go to the Supreme Court, the way this case is unfolding.”

Three of her alleged accomplices--who in the past have claimed they were exempt from federal laws, including the income tax system--on Wednesday accepted the appointment of federally paid defense attorneys.

Times correspondent Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this report.