Dr. Roberts filed suit against the government in 1999 after being investigated for 4 years by a local IRS agent. His suit included making this person leave him, his reputation and business alone. He also wanted the court to answer the question: “Can I be forced to sign a statement or declaration under the penalty of perjury?” He currently has a civil case on appeal at the 8th Circuit in St. Louis over the constitutional issue of forcing him to sign a 1040 form or any other form under the penalty of perjury. This case is fully briefed and has been for 1 year at the appellant court without a ruling. Actually, it will be 1 year next month.

Just so happens approximately 1 month after his case was appealed to the 8th Circuit is when he received a letter from the local Asst. Prosecuting Attorney requesting that he come in and “negotiate a plea or I will indict you!” He believes this “plea” had something to do with him dropping his case at the 8th Circuit. However, Dr. Roberts was not interested in a plea but he is very interested in having and standing up for his constitutional rights. He did not appear before the prosecutor nor before the grand jury. (He was not invited to go before the grand jury).

He received the indictment and was ordered to appear for an arraignment hearing. He was charged with violating 26 U.S.C. 7203 which is a punishment statute. (Feel free to look it up in the law books or go to any website that posts IRS Code.) At the arraignment, they tried to force him to sign another form under the penalty listing all of his assets and had he made 1 mistake they could have and would have charged him with a felony and imprisonment up to 5 years. He refused to sign this form stating they could not force him to be a witness against himself because the constitution clearly protects him from this. The judge ordered him into custody of the US Marshall, without bond. He, then, was shackled at the ankles, waist and wrist and escorted to jail. The US Marshall said “I’m taking you out like I took out John Gotti and Noriega.” Dr. Roberts said the main difference is “your taking me away for a misdemeanor.”

This all transpired on a Thursday and the judge conveniently left town on Friday. However, a habeas corpus was filed at the home of a local Magistrate which just so happened to be a patient of Dr. Roberts (former patient at the time since she had been notified by the IRS of the investigation). She “acted” like she was upset that her chiropractor was in jail but had to wait until the “judge” returned before proceeding. On Monday, Judge Robert Dawson was informed of this matter and by habeas rules he had to set a hearing and state 1) why he had incarcerated Dr. Roberts or 2) let him out because he had no authority to hold him. The hearing was set for Wednesday AM and instead of having a hearing and having to write an order saying he was wrong, Judge Dawson faxed the orders to release Dr. Roberts on bond. He was free by 2 pm.

Dr. Roberts case was put on the “fast track” in the court system and went to trial in June. He was unable to put witnesses on the stand, unable to present evidence of his good faith in communicating with the IRS over this issue and was basically railroaded to prison after a 3 1/2 day trial. I am forwarding all transcripts that I have and you will find that they make for interesting reading. His attorney repeatedly asked in the arraignment “what is the law that Dr. Roberts supposedly violated?” The only response is “we will answer that at a later date” or “sit down and shut up.” Well, that later date never came. At trial, the government never once spoke of any law and only tainted the jury with how much money he made, where he lived, what he drove and what else he had purchased.

Throughout the trial the judge would tell his attorney “you can take that up on your appeal.” (Is this not directing the jury to a guilty verdict?) He would also say such things as: “if there’s an objection from the prosecution, I will sustain it, Mr. Stilley move on to something else.” (The judge was practicing law from the bench when he was objecting for the prosecution.)

Dr. Phil Roberts is currently in Texarkana, TX after being sentenced to 9 months for Count 1 Willful Failure to File and 7 months for Count 2 Willful Failure to File. He has appealed the jury verdict based on many biased issues throughout the case as you will see when you read the transcript. His appeal was filed in a timely manner and according to 8th Circuit rules the gov’t had 10 days to respond to his appeal. Well, 6 (six) Federal Gov’t Attorney’s filed their response 13 days late. If Dr. Roberts’ attorney’s had filed his appeal late he would have been denied the right to an appeal, we shall see how this plays out. YOU NOW KNOW THIS IS A BIG ISSUE IF THEY HAVE 6 GOV’T ATTORNEY’S RESPONDING TO THIS APPEAL FOR A MISDEMEANOR!!!!!!!!!!

I am forwarding the appeal, the gov’t response and Dr. Robert’s response to the gov’t. Please note in the govt response the following:

PAGE 10: Line 6: “Allowing Fifth Amendment claims like defendant’s would seriously undermine the operation of the self-assessment system of income taxation.”

PAGE 11: Line 14: “Taxpayers could immunize themselves from their reporting obligations through the simple expedient of committing a failure to file misdemeanor. The tax system could not survive widespread use of such a scheme.”

PAGE 11: Line 19: “Finally, defendant’s assertion that his filing returns could have subjected him to a risk of prosecution if the returns were legally or factually incorrect is unavailing. A taxpayer’s fear of prosecution must arise from the return’s disclosing criminal activities rather than the possibility of making a mistake.”

Does anyone fear filing a tax return because they may be disclosing criminal activities? No we fear that the tax form is wrong in some way and “they will come after us!”

Also, his total sentence, probation etc. is approximately 3 1/2 years. The maximum under sentencing guidelines is 1 year. But they really stretched it to put Dr. Roberts behind bars and keep him under their thumb for a long time. After all, he is a big threat to society for expecting his privacy and his 5th Amendment rights to be respected!

Dr. Roberts has never been assessed. At sentencing the IRS agent testified that he was not an expert in assessment, was not qualified to do an assessment and had very little knowledge of the code but he did an assessment anyway and came up with a $$$$ figure in order to get his sentencing points raised so that he would have to do prison time.

Dr. Roberts’ appeal was fully briefed by both sides last Tuesday and according to the clerk will go to the panel of judges. This is also what they said approximately 1 year ago about his civil case. So currently, he has a civil and criminal case on appeal at the 8th Circuit Court in St. Louis.

You can also look at additional information at www.springer2000.org concerning his case

Any correspondence or questions you might have you can direct to me at opusone@ipa.net or feel free to write:

Phil Roberts #05997-010-W1
Federal Prison Camp
Po Box 9300
Texarkana, TX 75505

He reported approximately 3 months ago and sometimes feels he is the only on in this fight since no one or no group has really taken his cause on. Mainly because the story has not been out there. But he is ready to get the story out and tell his side. Anyone interested in writing him a letter of encouragement or “that a boy” feel free to do so I know he would love to hear of other in the fight!

Feel free to email this information to anyone who is interested. If the gov’t can do it to a well-known, respected, upstanding citizen without blinking an eye or an uprising from the people we should all be worried that we are next!!!!!

Thanks,

Brenda Gray
opusone@ipa.net

——————————————————————————–

Below is the story subsequent to Phil’s conviction relayed to us by his Brother, Robert Roberts on 7/16/03:

I am sorry to say that Phil spent a year in the federal prison camp in Texarkana, Arkansas/Texas. The appellate courts upheld his conviction and the supreme court refused to hear the case.  He was released and spent a year on probation but the government still occupies much of his time and efforts. His reputation was slaughtered and his woman left him for another man. He still firmly believes that he is correct and that the law is misapplied (intentionally) to extract funds from the citizens of this country.

Be aware that, even though the facts proved that he is right, the court did not allow any introduction of these facts before the jury. His juror pool was literally composed of members who attended church with the federal judge that orchestrated his demise.

There was nothing fair nor impartial about the procedure. But there is a heavy price extracted from those who oppose the established process. He also informed me that other doctors (chiropractors and AMA types), as well as lawyers were being incarcerated at his location for conviction of the same ‘crime’ (failure to file).

He became so inundated with e-mails that he finally dropped off of the web so that he cannot be reached via that avenue any longer.

There is a tremendous amount of information available out there. One site is http://famguardian.org and is hosted by Chris Hansen. Chris actually posted the entire court transcript for Phil’s trial on this site.  Another wealth of information can be found at Walt Maken’s sites, one of which is http://www.angelfire.com/oh4/befree . Walt actually has scanned in legal documents that indicate to me that the retention of an attorney may be devastating to one’s defense. It seems that they owe their loyalty to the court not to their clients.

Good luck in your endeavors.

Regards,

Robert

http://famguardian.org/Subjects/Taxes/CaseStudies/PhilRoberts/PhilRoberts.htm