Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed: Family Returns Home to Find that “Sovereign Citizen” Has Taken up Residence

An Ohio family returned home from visiting a terminally ill relative to find someone else living in their house.

The family members, who wish to remain unidentified, said Robert Carr – a complete stranger – entered their home, changed the locks, and removed their belongings while they were out of town.

Carr filed what is called a “quiet title” and laid claim to the property. He said the family abandoned the house and gave up all rights.

WLWT investigated and found that this isn’t the first time Carr has seized someone else’s property: he is linked to at least 11 other cases in Butler and Hamilton counties – seven of which were filed the same day.

Alison Warner, the family’s lawyer, said Carr is looking for full title and ownership of the home:

“He’s in their home. They don’t know when he’s there. He can be there now.”

WLWT News 5’s Karin Johnson found that Carr has posted “no trespassing” signs on some of the properties he is attempting to seize, despite not being listed as legal owner of any of the homes.

She ran into Carr at one of the properties and he explained why he thinks he has the right to take over other people’s property:

“When you abandon a property, bam, walk away from it, ‘I ain’t never coming back. I don’t want nothing to do with it,’ right? Somebody can come in, ‘Oh, mine.'”

Carr also said he doesn’t work alone:

“I have a team of people who go out and I say make sure the house is empty. If it’s empty, change the locks.”

It gets even better – Carr informed Johnson that anyone can enter an “abandoned” home, change the locks, and become the new owner.

Carr said the quiet title process is simple and that he is not doing anything illegal.

So far, Carr has been charged with breaking and entering in one case. He is fighting that charge, and even went as far as to write “rejected” and “offer not accepted” across the front of the indictment.

Carr claims to be a “sovereign citizen“, which means he believes that he gets to decide which laws he’ll obey and which he’ll ignore. He filed a Motion to Dismiss his case, on which he signed his name as “Robert Carr, De Jure Sanguinis Coronae.” According to UCADIA, that term means the following:

Ancient Latin legal maxim literally meaning “concerning (the) law of (the) blood of crowns” In COMMON LAW since the end of the 16th Century, royal or noble blood has claimed superior status — in particular to the freedom of their body, protection of property and the obligation of any matter brought against them to follow DUE PROCESS (of the LAW), especially right of RELIEF. When an individual claims de jure sanguinis coronae, providing they demonstrate a comprehension of the term and why they should be granted such status then the COURT must grant such recognition. This means any failure of DUE PROCESS or failure to account for RELIEF by the COURT obligates to compensate the individual accused.

So, Carr believes his status as a “sovereign citizen” allows him to break into, empty, and reside in any home he believes to be abandoned. Other people have claimed sovereignty from government interference, with a recent case being that of Ernie Tertelgte, a man who was arrested for fishing without a license. Unfortunately, Carr is using it to commit theft of property.

WLWT contacted the FBI, but agents would not comment on this specific case. Special Agent in Charge Kevin Cornelius said they have seen similar cases before:

“They’ll come together as groups to receive training, how to conduct some of these schemes from a financial standpoint, to understand what they consider the common law and how they can use that common law for their sovereign purposes,” Cornelius said. “I’m not familiar (with) any cases where it’s held up in court. I think that it holds up the process of the court’s decision.”

It is likely that Carr will lose his cases and the families he has displaced will be able to return to their homes, but when? Sovereigns are known for swamping courts with documents filled with pseudo-legal nonsense.

The Southern Poverty Law Center describes tactics sovereigns often employ:

Sovereign filings in legal battles can quickly exceed a thousand pages. While a normal criminal case docket might have 60 or 70 entries, many involving sovereigns have as many as 1,200. The courts are struggling to keep up, and judges, prosecutors and public defenders are being swamped.

The size of the documents is an issue, but so is the nonsensical language the documents are written in. They have a kind of special sovereign code language that judges, lawyers and other court staff simply can’t understand (nor can most non-sovereigns). Sovereigns believe that if they can find just the right combination of words, punctuation, paper, ink color and timing, they can have anything they want — freedom from taxes, unlimited wealth, and life without licenses, fees or laws, are all just a few strangely worded documents away. It’s the modern-day equivalent of “abracadabra.”

It sounds like the families whose property has been seized by Carr are in for a long, frustrating legal battle.