Woman Must Discontinue Promoting Use of ‘Warrants’

Calling her activities seriously illegal and perhaps criminal, a federal judge on Thursday ordered a Palmdale student of the so-called Montana freemen not to promote use of bogus checks at the seminars she holds for thousands of students in the high desert.

Federal officials say they have received more than $30 million worth of the checks--including millions of dollars worth in Ventura County--signed by M. Elizabeth Broderick, who claims to be a “private bank” that can issue “warrants” backed by liens she has filed against the government.

Most of these warrants are not accepted by financial institutions, but that hasn’t stopped Broderick’s disciples from using them to rent a Canyon Country house, pay hospital bills and buy eight new Cadillacs.

“The predominant share of the checks in Ventura County were in Simi Valley and a few others in the Conejo Valley and in Camarillo,” said Gary Auer, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Ventura office. He said authorities are unaware that any of the checks successfully passed in Ventura County.

Broderick was not in court on Thursday, but filed papers contending the U.S. attorney’s request for the temporary restraining order against her was “a fraud.”

Judge William Keller warned friends of Broderick’s in the audience that he considers the matter “very serious.”

“There is no legal authority for what they’re doing here,” Keller said, adding that Broderick could be liable to charges of bank and mail fraud. “The conduct as described on the part of the defendants is totally unacceptable.”

It was the second civil injunction slapped on the 52-year-old Broderick this week. On Tuesday, Keller barred her from filing liens against a Postal Service spokeswoman and her family after postal authorities distributed mailers warning that the “warrants” she promotes are invalid.

Broderick’s brother, Gordon Cowie, said in an interview that his sister still plans to hold her scheduled seminar Sunday in Lancaster, but that since she does not distribute checks at the meetings, she will not be in violation of the judge’s order.

If Broderick violates the injunction, she could face penalties ranging from fines to criminal charges, and Keller warned that he would enforce the law.

“I’m not going away,” he said.

At Broderick’s two-day seminars, held every other week and attended by people from as far away as Hawaii, students pony up $125 in advance, or $200 at the door, for two luncheon buffets, papers explaining how to serve liens and a form to order one warrant, according to court papers.

For $100 extra, attendees can buy a computer program enabling them to create their own warrants, which are signed by Broderick.

Broderick says the warrants are valid only to cover a debt, but if they are not accepted by financial institutions she threatens to retaliate against them with new liens, officials say.

The latest lien is a $50-billion claim Broderick says she filed against KCAL-TV Channel 9 for its reports on her workshops.

Broderick and her co-defendants--Laura Marie Hoey and Adolph Hoch of Moreno Valley--declare themselves “Sovereign California Citizens” in papers they filed opposing the injunction and refusing to provide their ZIP Codes.

They accuse federal officials of “trespassing on the sovereign property under the display of the American free flag of peace.”

On the same day that federal agents arrested Montana freemen leader LeRoy Schweitzer last month, sparking a standoff with his armed followers, the FBI searched Broderick’s Palmdale house, confiscating computers, disks, files and antique guns. The next day federal agents searched rooms at the Essex House hotel in Lancaster where she holds her seminars.

In court Thursday, Keller deleted a portion of the injunction request filed by Assistant U.S. Atty. Pamela Johnston, which warns that anyone violating the injunction can be immediately arrested.

“That could potentiate all kinds of problems for all kinds of people,” he said.

Cowie said his sister, who was out of town Thursday, will obey Keller’s ruling, although she views it as “ridiculous.”

“She is not doing anything that every other business doesn’t do every day of the week,” Cowie said.