Garden Grove : Tax Resistance Group Now Meets in Warehouse

As Armen B. Condo this month began serving an eight-year sentence in federal prison for mail and tax fraud, members of the income tax resistance organization he headed continued to meet, but under a different banner.

Members of Your Heritage Church, closely tied to Your Heritage Protection Assn., the anti-income tax group Condo founded almost 10 years ago, say they will soon seek a new trial to free Condo.

Thomas Pat Creech, whose church title is Maverick Minister II, conceded that Your Heritage Protection Assn. (YHPA) has been left leaderless and in a state of suspension. The organization, however, still has more than 3,000 members, many of whom meet in a Long Beach furniture warehouse on Sundays.

In about a week, Condo’s supporters plan to file a motion in Federal District Court in Los Angeles seeking a new trial, Creech said. The group contends that the Internal Revenue Service withheld vital information from the defense during Condo’s mail and tax fraud trial.

Condo, 48, was found guilty on 41 counts in May, 1982, and appealed the verdict. This month, however, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear final appeals, and U.S. District Judge Robert Takasugi ordered Condo arrested and taken to the federal correctional institution on Terminal Island.

His trial and court convictions stemmed from his use of the mails to counsel members to file tax-withholding forms stating they had no taxable income, since their income was paid in federal reserve notes worth no more than the paper on which they were printed.

In November, IRS agents seized the YHPA headquarters on Garden Grove Boulevard. Creech now operates the church and Your Heritage Bookstore from his Garden Grove home.