STONE RIDGE � Richard Ulloa, the man who filed $1.24 trillion in liens against various local and county officials � and who in the process alleges his constitutional rights were systematically violated after he was pulled over by Rosendale Police in June of 2009 � has been found guilty of seven counts of mail fraud by District Judge Thomas J. McAvoy.

Ulloa told the Shawangunk Journal that he was disappointed and surprised by the convictions. In turn he pointed toward two common law proceedings under presiding Public Minister of Justice Mark Arnold that found Ulloa "not guilty" of mail fraud.

Common law proceedings in general are not recognized by current law. Nonetheless, and in keeping with his insistence that current government and legal proceedings either are discriminatory or don't apply, Ulloa asked the "Assembly of the People" to hear his case in an informal court in a Highland home "because common law is higher than their court."

About that gathering, Ulloa said that "on November 28, 2010 and December 23, 2010 people came in from New Jersey, Vermont, Long Island, and Ulster County to hear my case. They asked lots of questions and were not even paid," he said, adding:

"A jury of the people, 24 men and women, looked at the documents and said all was in order and it was not mail fraud."

Official documents from those proceedings were then sent to District Court Judge McAvoy prior to Ulloa's Dec. 28 trial � but were deemed to have no legal standing, and neither was one of the common law assembly's "scribes" allowed to testify.

"Common law is higher than their court; that's an appealable thing right now," said Ulloa.

But what is a "common law court" or "Assembly of the People?"

According to several academic sources: "Common law courts are not absolutely bound by precedent, but can (when extraordinarily good reason is shown) reinterpret and revise the law, without legislative intervention, to adapt to new trends in political, legal and social philosophy."

Others have concluded that "common law, also known as case law or precedent, is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than legislative statutes or executive branch action. This common law system is a legal system that gives great precedential weight to common law on the principle that it's unfair to treat similar facts differently on different occasions."

In other words, the jurors at Ulloa's common law proceedings based the verdict on the principle that similar cases should be decided with a consistency of rules so all results are equivalent for similar charges.

The US District Court didn't agree. And Ulloa was sued by many of the persons against whom he filed liens.

LIENS?
He filed liens?

Yes � and did so initially, he said, because he was incensed by the handling of two traffic tickets. Out of that, Ulloa began filing an onslaught of maritime liens, Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) liens that cover personal property, together with liens against municipalities, the County of Ulster, and many individuals and other public entities.

And because the lien filings were mailed through the United States Postal Service, Ulloa's actions eventually led to a federal racketeering complaint under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO). This in turn led to a civil lawsuit and a criminal indictment of ultimately seven counts of mail fraud against Ulloa and recorded in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York in Albany, June 18, 2010.

John W. Bailey, of the Albany law firm of Bailey, Kelleher & Johnson, P.C., defense attorney representing the many plaintiffs in the RICO civil suit said the goal of the suit is to expunge his clients' records of the liens filed by Ulloa.

According to Bailey, before sentencing, Ulloa will have a "pre-sentence investigation" giving the judge reliable information to come up with appropriate sentencing.

Bailey said, "He'll [Ulloa] be interviewed by probation officials and experts that will prepare a report for the judge so that the judge will have the benefit of what various experts think."

Ulloa will prepare a "Motion for Reconsideration" and said, "I am calling the judge this afternoon � I need a text order to come from Judge McAvoy to suggest what to do prior to sentencing."

"PAPERWORK TERRORISM"
The entire scenario, and what some have called "paperwork terrorism" by Ulloa, began with a June 2009 arrest by Rosendale police when Ulloa of Stone Ridge was pulled over and failed to produce the requested New York State driver's license. Instead he presented the officer with both an International Driver's Permit and a Costa Rican driver's license.

Although these documents are verified by the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles as legal documents for operating a motor vehicle in any state or country, Ulloa was ultimately sent to Ulster County jail for a psychiatric evaluation.

And then came the RICO case, indictment and now conviction.

In a former interview with the Shawangunk Journal Ulloa said he was certain that the liens and all documents sent through the mail were not fraudulent, "The statute of 'mail fraud' means you have to intentionally know it is fraudulent," he argued.

He said, "Mail fraud is if I were to go into your mailbox, get a credit card application, and fill it out and change the address to my own."

PRIVATE
So why did he start mailing "notices of intent" to place liens to begin with?

"To make the people aware of their wrongdoings � fraud with my Wells Fargo mortgage; the traffic tickets � in fact Wells Fargo just pleaded guilty to 55,000 counts of filing false documents with the court," he said.

Ulloa said he also inadvertently discovered something when filing the lien notices: "I learned that when you file with the Secretary of State, although you know the information will be in their database, they don't tell you that they sell the database to Dunn and Bradstreet and throughout the world. They never disclosed that to me. I thought this is private. It was never my intent to get the data out. I didn't want my data published on other databases. I didn't pay a fee for them to send it out and there was no box to check to consent for them to sell the information."

Additionally, he argued that in order to make a lien go from being just a "notice" to an actual lien one has to go to a Federal judge and make it into a lien. Ulloa said he never took the step to go to a Federal judge.

Ulloa stated that, in addition, a July 6, 2010 Financial Statement Amendment stating that The Credit Union and the Law Firm of Corbally in Poughkeepsie terminated the UCC1's and Notices of Lien with a UCC3 (Uniform Commercial Code) shortly after he filed them.

"So, if they terminated them � what justice are they now seeking?" with finding him guilty of mail fraud, he asked.

Ulloa is scheduled to be sentenced April 15 � ironically, on the last day to file an income tax return for 2011.