Review-Journal resists subpoena for names of readers who posted views - News

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Jun. 16, 2009
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Review-Journal resists subpoena for names of readers who posted views

By JOAN WHITELY
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

ORIGINAL STORY: Employer's gold, silver payroll standard may bring hard time

Download partial transcript from trial

Free speech collides with fair trial.

Review-Journal readers who posted online their views about a federal criminal tax trial are the target of a sweeping federal grand jury subpoena asking for information so that authorities may identify who they are and where they live.

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The Review-Journal plans to file later this week a motion to quash the subpoena, and the American Civil Liberties Union has posted its own online solicitation asking those who posted whether they would like the ACLU to legally represent them.

The newspaper received the subpoena on June 2, and Editor Thomas Mitchell revealed the existence of the subpoena in a June 7 column.

This past week the grand jury subpoena, which is separate from the ongoing trial but was signed by one of the prosecutors involved in the tax trial, was the topic of discussion between the trial judge and attorneys, revealing for the first time a possible motive for the subpoena.

The newspaper's subpoena does not explain why the U.S. attorney's office wants to know who commented on the case, but prosecutors told federal Judge David Ezra that they issued it out of concern for jurors' safety, because some comments hinted at acts of violence.

Las Vegas business owner Robert Kahre and others face federal tax fraud charges for paying contractors with gold and silver U.S. coins based on the precious metal value of the coins but using the much lower face value of the coins for tax purposes.

As of 9 p.m. Monday, 173 comments were listed below the May 26 Review-Journal article about the trial. Many comments deal with the trial and its principal players. Others were posted after the subpoena arrived.

The subpoena bears the name of U.S. Assistant District Attorney J. Gregory Damm, who is part of the government team prosecuting Kahre and three others on charges that include tax evasion, fraud and criminal conspiracy.

Jury members, Damm and Christopher Maietta, another government attorney, are the subjects of online comments that might be construed as threats.

On Thursday, the ACLU of Nevada also posted below the article an offer to help people who feel threatened by the subpoena. Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel of the civil rights organization, said it has received "several" inquiries.

Mitchell said the paper is resisting the sweeping nature of the subpoena, noting that anonymous speech is "a fundamental and historic part of this country," citing the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers that argued for passage and against passage of the nation's Constitution as an example. All were written under pseudonyms. He said the paper would consider cooperating if specific crimes or real threats were presented.

Interest in the Kahre case appears to run counter to a remark that Ezra made during a hearing to prepare for jury selection. If "CSI: Tax" were a television crime show, it wouldn't pull much audience, he said.

In the case, the government contends the defendants operated illegally, out of greed. The defense contends they had an honest but mistaken understanding of tax laws, and therefore had no criminal intent.

Many used the newspaper Web site to say the U.S. government has turned socialist, the nation's monetary system encourages deficit spending and guarantees inflation, or the Internal Revenue Service has to be reformed or abolished.

In addition to requesting the names of people who posted, the subpoena also tells the newspaper to supply the writers' gender, birth date, physical address, telephone number, Internet service provider, IP address, credit card numbers and more.

The reason for the subpoena came up in court, outside the jury's presence, after an alternate juror sent a note to Ezra, explaining that his spouse had told him to avoid a certain talk radio station, which was discussing the trial. Ezra retained the alternate after he determined the man did not know any details of the broadcast.

Ezra said this past week in court that he would not be handling the subpoena. However, "anytime we get people writing ... that if a particular verdict isn't reached, that jurors ought to come to physical harm -- that's no good. And if somebody wants to investigate that, that's their perfect right."

One commentator said, "The sad thing is there are 12 dummies on the jury who will convict him. They should be hung along with the feds."

Another writer suggested supporting Kahre with a public protest at the courthouse. A third writer advised moving it across the street from the courthouse, or to the local IRS office, to avoid court security officers.

Kahre has been gaining an opinionated Internet audience after an armed team from several law enforcement agencies raided several of his business locations -- including his sister's home office -- in 2003 to collect evidence for the tax case.

Readers' online feedback, mostly anonymous, is almost entirely pro-Kahre. Some comments personally attack Damm. One, for example, calls him a "socialist, fascist Mormon" and a "Nazi moron."

David Heller, senior staff lawyer at the Media Law Resource Center in New York, characterized the subpoena as "heavy-handed" and "bizarre."

"Federal prosecutors do have very wide latitude in investigating crimes," he said. "Even so, their power isn't unlimited." Some of the online comments struck Heller as "loose slang and hyperbolic language" rather than authentic threats to juror safety.

To ensure safety but still allay the concern about violating writers' First Amendment rights, the Justice Department could have avoided a blanket subpoena and sought instead only authors of specific comments, defense attorney Michael Kennedy said June 9 in court.

The subpoena might entail "mixed motives due to the personal animosity between the parties," the New York media lawyer said after he heard a description of several court actions that have pitted Kahre against Damm, going back several years.

After the raid in 2003 -- but before Kahre's 2005 indictment -- Kahre and several of his workers sued Damm, two IRS agents and others who had helped plan or execute it. That civil matter is on hold until after the criminal trial.

In February 2007, Kahre sued Damm and agents of the FBI and IRS, alleging they conducted themselves during the investigation in a way that constitutes a criminal pattern. Judge Ezra dismissed the complaint in December, but Kahre appealed and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on Friday.

Kahre, his sister and a former assistant are standing trial for how they handled their own income taxes as well as their roles in Kahre's unique payroll system. Kahre paid workers at his six trade-related businesses in $50 gold or silver dollar coins. Those minted after 1985 are allowed to circulate as money. He also allowed workers to immediately exchange the coins for paper currency, as determined by the coins' investment value.

Two years ago, Damm prosecuted a similar tax case against nine defendants, including Kahre, on more than 160 counts. The trial ended with no convictions and four acquittals.

Five defendants were only partially acquitted, and two of them were dropped from the indictment that generated this trial.

Contact reporter Joan Whitely at jwhitely@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0268.

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Please enter your name Name: Please enter your email Email: Please enter a comment COMMENTS : (word count limit is 300) You have reached the maximum number of words allowed Current Word Count: Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background. Chad Kister wrote on June 26, 2009 04:47 AM: J Gregory Damm needs to resign. Damn him for assaulting the U.S. Constitution and everything that it stands for. He is an un-American who does not belong in this country -- at least as a public official of any kind. These kinds of fascist tyrants who abuse the law and threaten our Constitutional Rights need to be charged and imprisoned. Rep wrote on June 20, 2009 08:45 PM: Gustopo Gillespie going down COME AND GET ME wrote on June 20, 2009 12:03 AM: FactsUpTopPlease Waiting till paragraph five isn't the worst part. The fact that they are considering turning over any information is the worst part. And yes they are trying to seem like the heroic victim. I'll say it again the only reason the RJ started to resist the subpoena at all was because the ACLU got involved. Mr. Mitchell would have handed over his mother to avoid going to jail or spending any of the papers money on lawyers. The two posts that they are using didn't even meet the level of threat for an elementary school. They were adults saying what every other adult has said at some point in their life. This was simply a cover used by Damm to collect information on others for another reason. I think that when this is all over we will find out that Mr. Damm and the government have been up to their necks in unlawful tactics. Mr. Damm has already been slammed by the 9th circuit for prosecutorial misconduct but was cleared of course by the BUSH justice department. Damm is a very loyal foot soldier and is comfortable in suppressing free speech as well as exculpatory evidence. We can only hope that his Mormon buddy Judge Dawson will be able to find his copy of the Constitution when he hears the case. America is becoming a place that many of us thought it would never be. Maybe they can release an updated version of 1984 with the forward written by Damm and the RJ. Judging by the number of posts that are being pulled down and information turning up on other web-sites I think the RJ has been feeding Damm and governments appetite for quite sometime. I could be wrong but I don't think so. Sweet dreams my fellow citizens! bill smith wrote on June 19, 2009 08:29 AM: c'mon, do think that if you paid taxes with gold coins that the government would receive them with fair market value, they would say you were retarded for not selling them first then paying us for what you reveived for them. fair market value is very vaigue, and can be varient. look at it this way, when you go to the market and pay $10 for a book of 20 stamps, you paid .50 for a .41 stamp. when used, they are recognized what the face value is, not the fair market value. the wealthiest people in this country do a hell of lot worse than this, and at a hell of lot more loss to government tax revenue. FactsUpTopPlease wrote on June 18, 2009 10:15 AM: Don't wait till paragraph five to give the reason/justification for the probe. You know very well how people read. Many don't reach graf three, let alone five. This burial of fact was your attempt to seem the heroic victim of blind and pointless government intrusion. You are victims of government intrusion. And heroic, too. But hints of violence are some justification for a subpoena. You should have more fairly put that point in graf one or two. Meantime, give them nutting. Unfair and Imbalanced Fred wrote on June 17, 2009 09:17 PM: Hey Fred, With your all powerful mind please explain this. Congress has not defined what a dollar is but there is one thing that is 100% clear. FRNs are NOT dollars. Even the Treasury Dept has said so in writing. If I take a $50 gold coin and I exchange it with a coin dealer tomorrow and ask him to pay me in silver dollars he would give me 65 Silver "legal tender" U.S. dollars minted by the U.S. mint. An Federal Witness Coin dealer just said so in court this week. So what is the "fair market value" of the $50 gold coin? $65. I take in $65 dollars in silver dollars minted since 1986, exchanged them for a new gold legaltender coins. What is the fair market value of 65 silver dollar coins? Well of course it is $50 in U.S. legal tender. What law requires ANYONE to use Federal Reserve Notes to determine the "fair market value" of other forms of currently minted U.S. Legal Tender? Show me the law oh smart one. And remember that the US Supreme Court ruled that if taxing language is not clear and unequivocal that the citizens is exempt. That case has NEVER been overruled. The reason they are trying to convict Kahre is because they are desperate to keep the Fraud THEY COMMIT from being exposed to Sheeple. You know who you are. Federal Reserve Notes ARE NOT DOLLARS. They are legal tender but so are pennies. Pennies are not dollars. No law requires you to calculate the fair market value of U.S "money." You may have to calculate income you get that is paid in "property" but not "money." And I have a letter from the IRS that says so. Silver and gold coins minted since 1986 are "money." They are also legal tender. Get more information here: http://www.independentamerican.org/ Jack Black wrote on June 17, 2009 06:43 PM: I had a thought..... Does anyone know Gregg's Address.... ! Might be interesting to post it and have 20 to 30 people standing out side his house everyday just looking at him..... No signs, no words, no sound ... Just stares... You know that intense look a mean dog gives you before it bites you... Just so he knows We The People are watching... Maybe that would allow him to sleep better at night... Knowing we are watching every step he makes and every thing he does.... The rest of our out of control servants might just wake up and understand their power comes from us. The PEOPLE..... I am so sick of public servants acting out of line that I can hardly stand it... Who the hell do they think they are..... They are leaches that suck the life out of the working class... Come on America... Is this what our fore fathers bled and died for I THINK NOT !!!! "As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also." Thomas Jefferson It has become quite clear who the enemy really is.... And now because I state my opinion (My Right) I will now be on my enemies list. Ha "A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference." Thomas Jefferson Sleep well Greg I'm sure you are on someones list also. :) Jack Doca Art wrote on June 17, 2009 02:14 PM: The time for resistance to government tyranny is NOW !! Dissent is used by those in a free nation, when they do not redress for grievances from government. We have too long been economic slaves to the banking system and our oppressive laws of public control. hidden IP Address wrote on June 17, 2009 01:59 PM: So, does this mean that I post my message here may get me arrested? LOL...what's this country come to. You guys should learn about something called IP hidding. WHAT? wrote on June 17, 2009 10:48 AM: You claim the ACLU does not fight for gun rights and then you say you like the USA PATRIOT ACT? WAKE UP and learn from history. It is called the slippery slope and you are on it. You cannot support ANYTHING that is even questionably constitutional and the USAPATRIOTACT is unconstitutional JUST because it is too long to read and understand. PUBLIUS. (Madison) Federalist Papers 62: “It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed? James Madison: "It is proper to take alarm at the FIRST EXPERIMENT experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the FIRST DUTY OF CITIZENS and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of America DID NOT WAIT till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences IN THE PRINCIPLE, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much... to forget it." Obviously you and FBFred do not revere this lesson. I DO. Look at what Madison said then think IRS code/USAPATRIOTACT: "so voluminous that they cannot be read... or undergo such incessant changes" = can't be law. The code consists of over 7,000,000 words, and has been changed 5,400 times since 1986. It cannot be law. Read All Comments