Cromwell files $137 million in liens against law enforcement, IRS, Social Security

Lee H. Cromwell, the Oak Ridge man convicted of vehicular homicide and aggravated assault on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2017, has filed $137 million in liens against local law enforcement officials and agencies, as well as against the Internal Revenue Service and a Social Security service center, according to state records. Cromwell, who was convicted after a fatal parking lot crash at the Midtown Community Center after fireworks in Oak Ridge on July 4, 2015, is pictured above during a preliminary hearing in Anderson County General Sessions Court on Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

Note: This story was last updated at 12:15 p.m. Feb. 17.

Lee Harold Cromwell, the Oak Ridge man convicted of vehicular homicide and aggravated assault on Wednesday, has filed $137 million in liens against local law enforcement officials and agencies, as well as against the Internal Revenue Service and a Social Security service center, according to state records.

Cromwell has been indicted by a grand jury in Davidson County in Nashville on Class A and Class E felonies. Officials announced those indictments after Cromwell was convicted at the end of his vehicular homicide trial in Anderson County Criminal Court in Clinton on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation elaborated, saying that Cromwell was one of 11 people indicted in a 320-count indictment after a one-year investigation into fraudulent liens in East Tennessee that was conducted with help from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. So far, 10 of the 11 people have been arrested on charges of unlawfully filing liens and making false entries into records, the TBI said. Multiple other state, county, and local law enforcement agencies participated in the arrests on Wednesday.

Seven of those arrested, or more than half of them, are from Anderson County. They claim to be “sovereign citizens,” or people who do not typically “believe that they have to abide by the rules everyone else follows because they have declared their personal independence from government,” said Dave Clark, Anderson County district attorney general.

TBI special agents began their investigation at the request of Clark in May 2016. They were helped by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Anderson County Circuit and Criminal Court Judge Don Elledge is pictured above on Monday, May 9, 2016. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

The investigation started about the time that Anderson County Circuit and Criminal Court Judge Don Elledge learned that Cromwell had filed a lien against the judge, causing Elledge to recuse himself.

Most of the liens filed by Cromwell were filed after a fatal crash in the Midtown Community Center parking lot after fireworks in Oak Ridge on July 4, 2015—that’s the case that led to Cromwell’s vehicular homicide conviction on Wednesday—but nine against the IRS were filed before. The liens against the IRS range from $3,337.05 to $4 million.

The 20 liens filed against local law enforcement officers and agencies are all for either $4 million or $8 million. They were all filed after the July 4 crash. All of the officials and agencies that Cromwell filed liens against have been involved either directly or indirectly in the vehicular homicide case against him. Some of those liens have been terminated.

Here’s an example of a termination letter for a lien filed against Elledge:

“Judge Elledge has no indebtness or financial obligation to you,” said Heather C. Ross, senior counsel in the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office, in a June 14 letter to Cromwell. “You had never had any contact with Judge Elledge prior to the filing of these liens. The only interaction with Judge Elledge at all occurred, and/or would have occurred, in the course and scope of his judicial duties as the judge in your criminal court matter. You have no legal cause or any basis whatsoever to attempt to place any lien or encumbrance either on real or personal property belonging to him. These are all matters of which you are aware.”

The specific liens filed by Cromwell are listed below. Oak Ridge Today first requested copies of the liens filed by Cromwell starting in July, and the news website has made several records requests since then, including within the past few weeks.

The records were provided by the Tennessee Secretary of State, which has drafted proposed legislation. The legislation is sponsored by Tennessee Representative William Lamberth, a Cottontown Republican, and Senator Brian Kelsey, a Germantown Republican.

“The bill would combat the issue of fraudulent liens filed against public and elected officials, as well as certain state and local employees,” said Adam Ghassemi, director of communications for Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett. “If passed, there would be a mechanism for these fraudulent liens to be permanently removed from the alleged ‘debtor’s’ record. The public official can file a sworn affidavit stating that the lien did not have any reasonable basis or legal cause, and after a short amount of time, the lien will be permanently removed. If the lien was validly filed, the secured party has the option of appealing to an administrative law judge.

“We believe this process will provide an expedited and uncomplicated process to remove fraudulently filed liens.”

A lien is a claim that one person owes something to another person. It’s not clear why Cromwell filed the liens, although many if not most of the law enforcement officials he filed liens against were involved in one way or another in the vehicular homicide case against him. It’s also not clear how the specific amounts were determined. Cromwell did not return phone calls seeking comment after Oak Ridge Today initially obtained the information about the liens last summer.

The lien filings, called UCC liens, don’t give explanations for why the debt is owed, and why a certain amount is owed.

Here’s a sample collateral statement filed against the IRS in a lien filed on February 10, 2015:

“January 14, 2015, in the amount of 4,000,000.00 in the money of account or in lieu of the money of account in Federal Reserve-Notes or a Bank-Draft of the United States-Dollars or whatever currency is prescribed as lawful currency in satisfaction of all debts Public and Private in the County in which this Claim was executed.”

Cromwell was immediately taken into custody after he was convicted of vehicular homicide and aggravated assault in Anderson County on Wednesday, in part because of the new indictments in Davidson County.

“This is part of a sealed indictment that we cannot discuss the specifics of at this time,” Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokesperson Leslie Earhart said Wednesday afternoon. “As soon as we are able to elaborate further, I will certainly let you know.”

Note: Since this story published, we have published a newer story on the Davidson County indictments here.

Cromwell has a sentencing hearing on the vehicular homicide and aggravated assault convictions in Anderson County Criminal Court in Clinton on April 11.

There have been questions raised in court hearings about whether Cromwell considers himself a “sovereign citizen,” although neither he nor his attorney have acknowledged that he is. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has said that sovereign citizens may believe that federal, state, and local governments operate illegally, and they sometimes file legitimate IRS and Uniform Commercial Code forms, like those used in Tennessee, for illegitimate purposes.

There have been at least two discussions about Cromwell and his alleged affiliation with the sovereign citizen movement, one in Anderson County General Sessions Court and another in Anderson County Criminal Court. During a September 21 hearing before Senior Judge Paul Summers, who was appointed to hear the case because of Elledge’s recusal, defense attorney James Scott moved to exclude any references to Cromwell being affiliated with a sovereign citizens’ group during the criminal trial this week, with the presumption that a discussion of sovereign citizens could produce a bias against Cromwell among the jurors. It’s not clear if the judge issued an order on that request, but there was no mention of sovereign citizens during the trial this week.

In an affidavit filed in Oak Ridge City Court in May 2014, Cromwell said, while contesting a speeding ticket, that he denies the corporate existence of the United States, Tennessee, and a long list of agencies that include the Oak Ridge Police Department and Anderson County Sheriff’s Department.

Cromwell’s filings of liens stopped about the time Elledge recused himself from the vehicular homicide case and after Summers was appointed. Summers warned Cromwell last summer of the consequences of filing fraudulent liens.

During a motion hearing in September, Scott, who represented Cromwell in the vehicular homicide and aggravated assault case, said he was not aware of the liens that had been filed by his client, they weren’t wise, and they were not relevant to the automobile accident.

During another hearing, a July 25 arraignment, Scott said the liens were part of a misguided effort by Cromwell to advocate for his innocence, the liens were ineffective, and he regrets them.

Elledge was not pleased with the liens filed against him.

“It was upsetting that he filed a frivolous lien against me,” Elledge said in July. “I’m going to do everything I can legally, morally, and ethically to prosecute him criminally and civilly to the full extent of the law.”

Summers, the special judge who presided at Cromwell’s homicide trial this week, has previously said a Class E felony such as that for filing a fraudulent lien has a sentence range of one to six years, and one to two years for a standard offender. It’s not clear if filing a larger lien, of $4 million or $8 million, for example, might increase the severity of the charges.

Note: Since this story published, we have published a newer story on the Davidson County indictments here.

The Tennessee Secretary of State has previously said its Division of Business Services processed more than 170,000 liens in 2015. Many are filed online.

Dave Clark

“We ensure each lien meets statutory requirements, but it is not always possible to identify if a lien is fraudulent,” Ghassemi said last year.

In July, Elledge said he had already discussed the liens filed against him by Cromwell with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a federal task force, the Seventh District Attorney General’s Office (the Anderson County DA), and local legislators.

After a lien against Elledge was publicized in May, one other official told Oak Ridge Today that Cromwell had filed a lien against him, and additional liens were disclosed during the July 25 arraignment for Cromwell. Those additional liens had been filed against the Anderson County District Attorney General’s Office and members of the DA’s staff, including Clark and prosecutor Vickie Bannach. They led to a temporary recusal of Clark’s office.

But the DA was later put back on the case. Tony Craighead, the deputy district attorney general who prosecuted the vehicular homicide and aggravated assault charges against Cromwell this week, had not had a lien filed against him by Cromwell.

Asked last summer if he had advised Cromwell not to file any more liens, Scott said he couldn’t discuss that due to attorney-client privilege. But it seems safe to assume that he did not recommend them.

More information will be added as it becomes available.

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