Creationist Kent Hovind Is Revenge-Suing the Government for $536,041,100.00

He’s basically seeking revenge on the government for convicting him, in 2006, of not paying income taxes — something he bragged about both privately and publicly, only to play dumb in the courtroom — and “structuring” bank transactions so that he would always withdraw just under $10,000 at a time (since anything above that would have required reporting by the bank). He always insisted he didn’t have to pay taxes because his money and property belonged to God, not the government.

According to the lawsuit, filed two weeks ago in federal court, Hovind and Hansen are going after — you ready for this? — the government, the judge in Hovind’s two cases, the U.S. attorneys who prosecuted them, an IRS agent, and Hovind’s own attorney from 2006 by saying they violated the plaintiffs’ “First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, Tenth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments.” The men also say the defendants were imposing law illegally on land that does not belong to the United States. (This is known as a sovereign citizen argument.)

That page claims that Hovind is owed money that amounts to:

Whatever his ministry would have made each year between 2004 and 2020, assuming a “conservative” 12% growth rate. His ministry took in $2.5 million in 2006, so by 2020, he says, he would have made $12.22 million had the government not interfered with him. All together, that comes out to $90.7 million.

$3,500 per day of “false imprisonment,” which comes out to $10,860,500.

$300 per month for commissary and phone privileges while in jail. That’s a total of $30,600.

Seized property valued at approximately $3 million.

All the “emotional distress and anguish” and punitive damages, and financial damages… which amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars.

In sum, the “total proposed damages” come out to $536,041,100.00. More than half a billion dollars.

https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/06/08/creationist-kent-hovind-is-revenge-suing-the-government-for-536041100-00/