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Title: MEDIA RELEASE: Joe Banister's Trial Day 1 and 2
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Published: Jun 17, 2005
Author: Sherry Jackson
Post Date: 2005-06-17 17:40:54 by christine
Keywords: Banisters, RELEASE:, MEDIA
Views: 99
Comments: 11
MEDIA RELEASE: Joe Banister's Trial Day 1 Joseph Banister Trial Day 1, Tuesday June 14, 2005 This trial update is from Sherry Jackson of Georgia, Ken Guthery of Florida, Peymon Mottahedeh and K. Ross Johnston from California. Today the jury was selected. There was a pool of 60 jurists, but they almost ran out because many were excused due to preplanned/prepaid vacations. A few others had other type hardships, but finally 12 jurors and 2 alternates were selected. The charges laid against Joseph Banister are: - Conspiracy to defraud the government. This is based on Joe's relationship with Northern California businessman Al Thompson. Joe met with Al and his workers and told his story and about his research about the Federal Income Tax. This meeting was videoed. There are two counts of Conspiracy. The government thinks that based on Joe's involvement with Al Thompson's non-filing payroll tax returns (941's) the government lost $176,215. - Filing false tax returns. There are three counts of filing false tax returns because Joe prepared amended tax returns (1040X) for Al Thompson for 1996-1998. The government says that because the amended returns took money off of the original returns and made income zero, they were false. The government thinks that based on Joe's filing of amended 1040's they lost $83,454. Mr. Twiss and Ms. Delaney are representing the government. Please pray that these people are confused and scattered from here on out. There were also two special agents helping these assistant US attorneys. Jeff Dickstein and Bob Bernhoft are representing Joe. The judge is Shubb. After jury selection they had to pick two alternates, so after lunch that was done. The judge then told the jury that Al Thompson's case was separated and was not part of this case. He also told the jury that the government has the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The judge said that he will give the law and they must follow the law whether they agree with it or not. He told them not to take anything he said as evidence. He told them that they could take notes but not to let the notes distract them from paying attention to the case. Next, the government gave their opening statement. They just basically repeated the charges. When Joe's attorney Jeff Dickstein did his opining he basically blew the conspiracy part away by saying that Al and Joe called the IRS and the IRS told them to file a 1040X if they had a dispute about the amount of tax owed. He also explained that conspiracy is something done in secret and everything they did was taped and that they even had a New York Times reporter in the meeting at Al's business. Jeff made the point that Joe went to his bosses at the IRS and asked them to show him if he was wrong. Jeff also made the point that Joe had been to DC and talked to the president's advisor, congress and others about answering questions concerning the misapplication of the income tax. Jeff noted that the government still has not answered the questions and that he hopes we will get answers during this trial. Dickstein told the jurors that "the government has to get through you to get to Banister) the (jury) in this trial, and that is the American way". He said Joe was born in law enforcement and investigation, just like Tiger Woods was born a golfer. He said that Joe was probably the only person here that has actually read the code, and that the jury will find out who has read the book and who hasn't, and who wants to open the book and who wants to keep the book closed. The judge said he was being argumentative and at that point Dickstein sat down. Next, the Government presented their first witness, which was Dennis Brown, IRS agent revenue (audit/examination) agent of 28 years. He has an active CPA, but Jeff ripped him up. This agent had to admit that: - If you made a mistake on your return you need to file a 1040X to correct it (like Banister helped Thompson with.) - The IRS can enforce and collect tax even if you have not filed. - Thompson's amended 1040 x returns had the proper form attached for stating Thompson's legal explanation for the changes. - That the 1040X is a voluntary form and not a required form Jeff asked the revenue agent the definition of individual and the government asked why. Jeff said "because I know it's not in the code and I am going to impeach him when he does not find it" the judge overruled him. After this witness the government did not have any more witnesses because they thought the jury selection was going to take all day. So the government wanted to show the tape of Al Thompson and Joe talking to Al's workers. Al talked about 10 minutes and then Joe started speaking. Joe's first comment on that video was that he is not there to "tell anyone what to think or what to do." WOW! Then he got even more credible and humble. They let the video play for about an hour and when they noticed a juror falling asleep the judge called it a day because it was 4:30. We had about 25 people on our side today. The trial starts Wednesday at 10:30. Stay tuned. We will send out a e-mail report of Banister's trial after each trial day. ******************* Today the trial started at 10:30am because the judge had something else to do earlier. We resumed the video where Joe and Al Thompson were talking to Al's workers in the fall of 2002. Some of the things that Joe said at the beginning of the playing of the videotape today were: - The 1999 1040 Instruction Booklet states mentions nothing but foreign income in the income section and one additional section. It mentioned nothing about domestic income. - Joe again stated that he was not there to tell people what to think or do. At 10:40am the judge stopped the video very upset and had the jury dismissed right when Joe was explaining that the 1040 instructions refer to foreign source income. Originally we did not know why the judge stopped the trial, but we soon found out that Mr. Parker, the same juror that went to sleep twice yesterday during the video, had fallen asleep again. We were only ten minutes into the start of the trial! The judge called Mr. Parker in and asked him the problem. He said he was having trouble staying awake. Mr. Parker was dismissed as a juror and now we are down to one alternate. The alternate that replaced Mr. Parker, in our opinion, is better than Mr. Parker would have been. The video was restarted and Joe, in the video, proceeded to go through his exhibits. One of his exhibits shown to the workers at CenCal was: - Title 26 CFR parallel authority refers to Title 27, which is ATF, which are enforceable taxes not like the income tax. Joe stated that he is doing nothing more than showing this information. Joe, in the video stated that Mr. Thompson takes care of everything himself ? all of the research. Joe said that he went to Washington DC to get the government to answer questions and all he got is "The legality of the income tax is not a high priority at the White House." Joe said, in the video, "When I leave this earth I want to make sure that I did right by my children. I empathize with you in your concern about retribution from not withholding, and I know that you may be feeling turmoil. But I am experiencing turmoil in my life also. I gave up an $80,000 job to do what was right. The money that you earn is yours and until the government makes a law, then it is yours. I don't believe it is Al's fault or your fault but it is the government's fault. The government is out of control and they don't care how hard you work ? I care and Al cares. At the end of the video Al Thompson opened it up for questions from his workers. Joe said "I am not saying don't pay taxes ? no one is stopping you from filing. There were some workers on the video (heard and not seen) that were scared and asked questions about getting in trouble. Someone asked about how many people have gotten in trouble about taxes. Joe mentioned Bill Benson and the fact that he was not prosecuted for the years that he found the 16th Amendment information, but was prosecuted for earlier years, and that Bill has not been filing since then and has not been prosecuted again. Joe told them both sides of the situation ? that even though the people are correct the government still goes against people. David Cay Johnston from the New York Times was at this meeting. He had heard about Al, called and flown out to California to be at this videoed meeting (some conspiracy!) David Cay Johnston asked several questions about all of the people and the church that has gotten in trouble about income taxes. Joe and Al explained that most of the people that have lost to the government had used flawed case law and or flawed legal arguments. Al also mentioned that those court cases do not carry the force of law ? that only the actual language of the law and Supreme Court cases have the force of law. Joe stated that the people have to choose for themselves what they would do with their money. They would have to choose to file or not. Joe said the government is powerful but we have rights. He said if we want a free country we must stand for our rights. The jury was escorted out and Bob Bernhoft stated that there is no conspiracy like the government claims, and that the government has not shown any evidence conspiracy. The government said that Joe conspired because when Al, on the video, said that Joe would be there to help anyone that got in trouble that Joe would be there to help them-and Joe did not disagree with that. The judge chimed in and said that the government need not prove that the speech was the conspiracy but that the speech can show part of the conspiracy. The judge cited Section 801(d)(2)(e) of Federal Rules of Evidence (which is an exception to the hearsay rule), to admit and use this statement of Al against Joe. The judge says that the purpose of the meeting was to have Joe tell the workers not to file (WOW). Judge said the government could use anything in furtherance of conspiracy. In essence the Judge denied Bernhoft's motion to dismiss the conspiracy charge. Next, the witnesses came in. We had six witnesses today. The first four were seamstresses for CenCal. The fifth witness was the general manager at CenCal, and the last witness was the owner of the payroll company that prepared CenCal's payroll tax returns until Al stopped withholding from the pay of his employees. The first four witnesses testified that Joe was at the meeting but they were scared and wanted Al to continue withholding. They all told how long they worked at Al's company and their hourly wage. These witnesses were a waste of time because they said nothing bad about Joe. Only the first witness, Trudy Baker, said she did not pay attention to anything Joe said in that meeting. The second witness, Dorothy Baker ? not related to Trudy, did not have much to say besides the fact that she wanted taxes taken out of her check. The third and fourth witnesses, Maureen Snyder and Jill French, were just like the second one. The fifth witness, the general manager, told the jury that Al said, "you can have all of your money and you can do with it what you want". The sixth witness, Susan Eaton, owner of TaxReps, Inc Payroll Company, stated the following: - She has a partner and three employees - She did payroll for Al from 1996 through July 2000 - She is not a CPA and does not have a college degree - She is an enrolled agent and her father taught her everything she knows - Her father was a public accountant ? not a CPA - She worked for her father for nine years When Jeff asked her had she ever read the code she said no. When Jeff asked her did she know what Subtitle A and Subtitle C were the government objected and the judge asked Jeff what is Subtitle C. Jeff told the judge that Subtitle C is employment tax and then Susan Eaton admitted that she had not read Subtitle C. She stated that she is not familiar with all of the subtitles but she knows that all of the tax law was on the test she took to become an enrolled agent. When Jeff asked her how she knows all the tax law was on the test if she had not read the code the government objected and the judge sustained the objection, so she did not have to answer. This woman filed the employment tax returns for Al's company, and completed W-2's for his workers AFTER her contract with Al was terminated! She told Jeff that she filed these and knew that it was Al's responsibility but filed them on his behalf anyway because "she knows that the forms had to be filed." Every time Jeff asked this woman about her knowledge of the law the judge did not allow her to answer. The government told the judge that they would be done by noon tomorrow because they just have two more witnesses to call. The judge decided in the afternoon the defense could watch the video deposition of Joe's former supervisor at the IRS. Then on Friday the witnesses for the defense will be called. The estimate is that by close of day Monday and no later than Tuesday the case will go to the jury. Yours in truth, freedom and justice, Ken, Ross, Sherry and Peymon
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#1. To: Neil McIver, Tax Pro Tester (#0)
ping
Come on all of you, big strong men, This judge needs to be reported to the Fully Informed Jury folks.
yeah, i'm sure those folks have their hands quite full.
Come on all of you, big strong men, The judge said that he will give the law and they must follow the law whether they agree with it or not. He told them not to take anything he said as evidence. The real Pantload of the Day Award Winner!
Thanks, chrissy. I didn't see this. As usual in such trials, it should be an open and shut case. The fact that Al Thompson was acquitted of conspiracy charges should warrant a dismissal of the charge, but it seems the judge has already sided with the government. The prosecution might not even care so much whether they win or not. It's grueling enough just being dragged through a trial. Courtrooms are dirty, filthy places if you ask me. I met Joe once. Shook his hand. He's been through an awful lot, not the least of which is accusations from the patriot community (in the early days, at least) of being a fraud or similar. Hopefully that's all past now. Let's pray he fairs well here.
*Joseph Banister Trial Day 3, Thursday June 16, 2005* The day started out with the government's 7th witness - Thomas DiLeonardo who is currently an assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey. During the fall of 1997 he was a trial attorney and worked with Joe on a fraudulent tax return case. The defendant in that case owned three gas stations/convenient stores and was accused of underreporting income. This witness stated the following: * Joe was a competent Special Agent who did exemplary and superior work. * During the investigation of the above mentioned case Joe did not ask him questions about the 16th amendment, 861 or any issues about the legality of the Federal Income Tax * He, Thomas DiLeonardo, did receive Joe's report on the Federal Income Tax, but he thought it was just the same old tax protestor arguments that the courts years have ruled against for the last 10 or 15 Years. * Before doing the Amended returns that Joe did for Al Thompson, Joe knew how to do the regular/traditional kind of return that most people do. When Joe's attorney, Jeff Dickstein, cross-examined Thomas DiLeonardo, he admitted that: * Joe knows what is fraudulent and willfulness. * In spring of 2000 Joe tried to contact and meet with Thomas DiLeonardo, but he was out of town (D.C.) * On April 9, 2001 in Washington, D.C., Thomas DiLeonardo saw Joe marching around the IRS building and had a conversation with him trying to find out what these people were doing. He admitted that Joe asked him to address the demonstrators, but he declined. * Thomas DiLeonardo never studied Subchapter N of the IRS Code and does not know what it covers. * DiLeonardo came to California in April 2001, and had a conversation with Joe. Joe told him why he resigned from the IRS, and asked him to help get some answers by arranging meetings with DiLeonardo's superiors, to discuss his questions about the legality of the Federal Income Tax. * Mr. DiLeonardo agreed and sent an e-mail to three individuals. The first one was Ron Semino, who was the Chief of the Western Division of the U.S. Department of Justice's Tax Division. The second and third one's were Melissa Shriebman and another DOJ Tax Division lawyer who were involved with tax protest issues and have handled a lot of tax protest kind of arguments. * Jeff asked "Are you still friends with Joe?" Special Agent - Shawn Breslin responded, "I have no reason not to." Obviously these Special Agents and DOJ lawyer who worked with Joe still had high regard for Joe and were not willing to lie to hang their old friend. When DiLeonardo said that Joe's arguments were frivolous Dickstein responded "Frivolous? Doesn't frivolous mean without case law to back it up?" and DiLeonardo replied yes. Then Jeff said, "frivolous, isn't that what the government calls things that they don't want to answer/understand". However the government objected and the judge sustained. [Shubb is not a judge; he's a pig. Ed.] Then when Jeff started asking this witness about the tax law and regarding the 16th amendment the judge objected on his own! [Shubb is not a judge; he's a pig. Ed.] The judge said that he would not let the jury decide whether the 16th amendment was ratified or not. This witness was dismissed and they gave the jury a 10-minute break while they all decided whether to let Al's California Franchise Tax Board tax returns into evidence. The judge said it was not relevant. [Shubb is not a judge; he's a pig. Ed.] Witness number 8 was an IRS Special Agent - Shawn Breslin, CPA. He had been a special agent since 1991 and he started investigating Al Thompson in September of 2000. There were some exhibits that the government had where calculations were made on what Al supposedly owed. These exhibits had "for criminal purpose" on them and Jeff objected so that government had to do all the exhibits over again. While the special agent testified the jury got corrected copies of these schedules. When the government asked the special agent questions he testified to the dollar amounts. On cross examination Jeff asked him over and over and over whether anyone impeded, impaired, obstructed or defeated the IRS from calculating, assessing or collecting the tax on Cen Cal (Thompson or his company or employees) and he said no every time. Jeff asked whether Joe impeded, impaired, obstructed or defeated the IRS from calculating, assessing or collecting the same alleged taxes and he said no. The Special Agent - Shawn Breslin noted that he has been with the IRS for 13 years but does not know the civil side of the IRS. He Special Agent - Shawn Breslin did not know whether Al Thompson's 1040's had been audited. Jeff asked if Joe Banister had an obligation to file the 941's for Al's company and he said no. Jeff said, "It's Al's responsibility not Joe's, not the employees and not Al Thompson's payroll tax preparer Susan Special Agent - Shawn Breslin answered: yes, it's Al's responsibility. In response to Jeff's question. *This ended Government's case against Joe and concluded the prosecutions' presentation to the Jury*. The jury was dismissed for the day and told to come back Friday at 9am. There was a break from 11:40 to 2:30 because the judge had another brief matter to handle. Then at 2:30 the sparks started flying. [Shubb is not a judge; he's a pig. Ed.] Joe's lawyers made a motion to dismiss the charges against Joe under Rule 29 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which REQUIRES a dismissal of the charges, if the Government fails to produce ANY evidence in the trial that could possibly show guilt of the defendant. Jeff cited on point U.S. Supreme Court U.S. v. Galletti, 541 U.S. 114, 121 (2004), Caldwell case (from the 9^th Circuit Federal Court of Appeal) to show that Joe's speech does not and cannot constitute conspiracy and that there was A COMPLETE ABSENCE OF PROOF by the Government. The judge asked the government to rebut that, and they did a poor job, since they did not have a case in the first place. The judge did not want to dismiss the case. [Shubb is not a judge; he's a pig. Ed.] Jeff stated again that the government did not prove an underlying tax liability. The judge asked the government why they did not better prepare the IRS Special Agent when being asked about conspiracy to impair, impede, obstruct or defeat the IRS. *The judge agreed that none of the government's witnesses proved willfulness or conspiracy.* The judge continued to argue with Jeff about it. Jeff told the judge that Rule 29 requires the judge to dismiss the charges because of lack of ANY proof. [Shubb is not a judge; he's a pig. Ed.] Judge did not want to dismiss the case, because if he did so, the U.S. Government could not reverse his decision by going to the 9th Circuit Federal Court of Appeal. But if he ruled against Joe, then he could get the judge reversed by the 9^th Circuit. Jeff reminded the judge that the law REQUIRES dismissal when the Government fails to provide ANY proof. The judge stated that he felt that Rule 29 is not fair to the Government and that there is some talk in the Congress to change Rule 29, so that the Government could appeal the dismissal of their case. [Shubb is not a judge; he's a pig. Ed.] Jeff reminded the judge that AT THIS TIME and until Congress changes the law, the judge must dismiss the charges! However, Judge Schubb did not want to embarrass his fellow government officials, who had successfully got a Federal Grand Jury to indict a ham sandwich (Indicted Joe) and wanted to convict the ham sandwich of the non-existent crimes (Joe's alleged conspiracy and false statements.) The judge argued a fair amount about this with Jeff and eventually made the political decision of going against the plain language of the law and against the evidence in the case by refusing to dismiss any of the charges. [Shubb is not a judge; he's a pig. Ed.] Next, both sides took out portions of the Deposition (under oath videotaped and transcribed testimony) of Joe' boss at the IRS, Mr. Gordini. The government wanted 7 items extracted and the judge let them extract 6.5. The defense wanted 1 item extracted and the judge let them extract it. It was a very insignificant item. Joe's lawyers are having the video edited for the jury's view in the morning.. [Shubb is not a judge; he's a pig. Ed.] Judge Schubb, attempted to prop up the government's case by letting all of the charges hang in there, for now, when the government did not provide any proof of the charges, but by letting them all go by the defense will be able to present all the evidence they want to bring in. With the conspiracy charge intact, Joe will be able to fully explain his story before, during and after his career with the IRS for the jury to see and evaluate for themselves. So all in all we believe the trial is going over well for Joe, as expected. [Shubb is not a judge; he's a pig. Ed.] Friday the Video of Mr. Gordini and 2 of Joe's witnesses and then Joe will testify later on Friday or on Monday. We expect the trial to be over around the middle of next week. At the end of the day upon coming out of the courtroom, Joe motioned for about 15 of us to come together in a huddle. We could see he was filled with emotion and did not know what to expect. About 30 feet away was his Mother, Aunt, his wife and youngest son. He quietly told us of his burden of the difficulty all this has been on his wife and sons. He asked us not to respond to his wife in any way because for now it would not be good. She would only receive it in a negative way. Special prayers need to be offered up for his wife and sons. The oldest is 17 and would not come. We all hurt for them and realize how serious this is and how great a sacrifice has been made by this family. We appreciate so much what Joe is doing for all of us and this is something we can do for him. Yours in truth, freedom and justice, Sherry,Ken, Ross, Peymon and Harry
A Joe Banister ping for the whole thread. Like I said, US courtrooms are filthy, dirty places. Their stench rises to heaven.
'Heaven' will deal with them...count on it.
the
Pig is appropriate.
and from Larken Rose: Dear Subscriber, Well, it was a whole hour between me posting a message about something that the government did right, and me getting something in the mail from them showing them doing their old tricks again. It was a Motion in Limine, which I was waiting for, in which the government asks the court to decide what should and should not be allowed to be brought up at trial. I won't give the details, because in a few days I'll be posting their motion and my response, but here is the funny/sad part: They acknowledge that we have a right to show that we did what we believe the law requires... they just don't want us to be allowed to show the jury ANY section of the statutes or regulations... or QUOTE from any section... or show them my "Taxable Income" report... or the "Theft By Deception" video. Feel free to be amazed, but don't be scared. This isn't a surprise at all, and about 80% of my rebuttal has been sitting here for weeks, waiting to be completed once I got their looney motion (which I knew was coming). "Sure, you can show what you believed... as long as you don't say anything about the law." Interesting view of "justice" they have. There will be a hearing (in court) about these motions, about what will and won't be allowed to be addressed at trial, on June 30th. It will very likely be the most interesting hearing yet in our case, and it will be in open court (open to the public). So if you can be in Philadelphia on June 30th, it should be quite entertaining. (I'll give more details later.) Sincerely, Larken Rose ********* Larken's Motion in Limine will not allow him to quote to the jury any statutes or regulations?? This should be a really fair trial, huh?
Uncle Sam needs your help again.
He's got himself in a terrible jam
Way over yonder in Iraq-nam
So put down your school books and pick up a gun,
We're gonna have a whole lotta fun,
And it's one, two, three ... What are we fighting for?
#2. To: christine (#0)
The judge said that he will give the law and they must follow the law whether th ey agree with it or not.
#3. To: mirage (#2)
Uncle Sam needs your help again.
He's got himself in a terrible jam
Way over yonder in Iraq-nam
So put down your school books and pick up a gun,
We're gonna have a whole lotta fun,
And it's one, two, three ... What are we fighting for?
#4. To: christine (#0)
Apologies up to all.
#5. To: christine (#1)
#6. To: Neil McIver (#5)
UPDATE:
#7. To: christine, *Joe Banister* (#6)
#8. To: Neil McIver (#7)
Their stench rises to heaven.
#9. To: Neil McIver, Jethro Tull, who knows what evil, all (#7)
Then when Jeff started asking this witness about the tax law and regarding the 16th amendment the judge objected on his own!
judge pig is prosecuting the case. there's not even a pretense of justice in the courtrooms anymore.
#10. To: christine (#9)
#11. To: Neil McIver (#7)
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