Winston Shrout Charged

[walter]

educational levels. The higher up you go, the better trained and educated the
judges are. Are reversals possible? Could be ... we’ll see.
But let me cue one important thing I was able to accomplish. The Office of
International Treasury Control has been in existence since 1995. I have exposed
this in several of the public arenas w
here I have spoken as I have shown my
official association with that. For instance, when I received an official
appointment into the OITC in 2010, Dr. Ray C. Dam as sole arbiter
‘noticed’ the
appropriate officers in the US Government and the United Nation
s. Look at the
word ‘noticed’. For those who are a bit educated in some of this, you would be
aware that a ‘notice’ has little weight ... ‘I got noticed, so what?’.
But when I was able to take the stand and give evidence in my own defense,
with the help of
some ‘angel’, I was able to put my appointment and
accompanying Apostille into ‘evidence’ meaning now that OITC has moved
beyond ‘notice’ as I was able to make the ‘record’. Oops. Now can the US say ...
‘so what?’, or is there now a responsibility/liabili
ty? That was one small
‘victory’, but obviously it did not win the battle.
So, life goes on. Do I have any animosity against anyone for this? No. In fact I
openly forgave the prosecutor right there in court. Do I have any bad feelings
toward the jury
even though they deliberated by my count over 8 hours, which
would normally result in a ‘hung jury’ and a mistrial? Not at all. I suppose they
had their ‘instructions’ and did their ‘duty’. They will have no bad feelings from
me. But if they acted agai
nst the evidence and against their own conscience, I
can only imagine the amount of karma they took on. That I am sorry for, but I
can do nothing for them. And this is something for all of us to consider
that our
acts, especially those acts which would g
o against our conscience and higher
selves, may have dire impacts on our lives, until we can come to terms with that
karma, and deal with it.
Will I solve this
problem in the US court system?
Maybe
,
but
there appears to
be little remedy there. I will tak
e this up at the international level. I suspect
that I will shortly have this resolved. When I do that I will write another article
which will be entitled
PROBLEM SOLVED
. Then this article entitled
GUILTY
will
become moot.
There is an old say
ing
: every tu
b has to stand on its own bottom. Each
individual has to take responsibility for themselves. Does what happens to John
or Mary directl
y affect everyone on the planet?
Probably not
,
unless you
consider the ‘butterfly effect’
. But regardless of what John
or Mary experiences,
everyone else has to take responsibility for themselves. I live within this body
and the outer layer of skin is as far as I go. Everything else is ‘not me’. So, what
may or may not happen to WINSTON or even Winston, ... every tub has
to stand
on its own bottom.
Stand in your own truth.
Winston

[walter]

By Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

The Oregonian/OregonLive

A federal jury Friday returned across-the board guilty verdicts against Winston Shrout, a prominent sovereign citizen charged with 13 counts of issuing fake financial documents to banks and the U.S. Treasury and six counts of willful failure to file tax returns from 2009 to 2014.

The jury foreman stood and read each guilty verdict for each of the 19 counts as Shrout watched from his seat at the defense table. Shrout displayed no expression.

He will be sentenced at 11 a.m. on Aug. 1.

U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones polled each of the jurors to ensure the 12-member panel was unanimous in its findings. As the jury foreman began reading each of the verdicts, one juror teared up. A fellow juror reached out to hold her hand as the rest of the verdicts were announced.

The judge ordered Shrout to turn over his passport and restricted him from any travel outside of Oregon without prior court permission.

The jury deliberated for about five hours over two days following a three-day trial.

Government lawyers argued Shrout aimed to cheat the Treasury and banks, and preached his illegal schemes to hundreds of others in paid seminars across the country and abroad.

He purposely sent a package of 1,000 homemade International Bills of Exchange, each purporting to be a legal tender for a trillion dollars, to a small community bank in Chicago "hoping to slip one by an unsuspecting banker,'' U.S. Tax Division trial lawyer Scott Wexler told jurors.

Investigators found a copy of the U.S. Tax Code and the U.S. Department of Justice's criminal tax manual on Shrout's laptop computer, seized one night in the parking lot of The Grotto in Portland after he concluded a seminar there. The computer also contained an alert from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, cautioning banks and federal savings institutions to be on the lookout for the circulation of such fictitious financial documents, Wexler said.

Shrout was driven by "simple greed,'' Wexler told jurors during his closing argument. He earned a total of $562,224 from a carpentry pension, plus royalties and payments for his seminars, between 2009 and 2014, the years he failed to file tax returns, the prosecutor said.

"He intended to get and keep as much money as he could,'' Wexler said. "The defendant knew he didn't have legal authority to print legal tender of the United States from his home computer... The defendant didn't file his tax returns because he didn't want to.''

The 69-year-old took the stand in his own defense, claiming he was given authority to make the financial documents from the Office of International Treasury Control in order to help relieve debts from mortgage foreclosures. The office Shrout cited, though, is considered by the U.S. government a fraudulent organization that claims ties to the United Nations and the Federal Reserve.

His standby lawyer Ruben Iniguez stressed that "not a single penny was paid out or transacted by anyone'' as a result of the 13 fictitious documents Shrout sent. He argued that the government was simply out to "muzzle'' his client.

Shrout also testified that he hadn't paid taxes for about 20 years, joining what he estimated are about 65 million other people in what he called "tax avoidance.'' Iniguez, in his closing argument, argued that Shrout held a firm and sincere belief that he didn't have to pay taxes.

Shrout declined comment after the verdicts were announced.

Making, creating and issuing fictitious financial instruments is a felony. Each count could bring up to 25 years in prison, according to prosecutors. The failure to file tax returns is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison.

-- Maxine Bernstein