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Activism See other Activism Articles Title: MEDIA RELEASE: Joe Banister's Trial Day 1 and 2 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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#4. To: christine (#0)
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!
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