Public officials became crime victims in antigovernment terrorism
Public officials in Colorado — including prosecutors, judges and sheriffs — found themselves in the unique position of being crime victims during a barrage of criminal activity by a group of antigovernment sovereign citizens.
Details how the elected officials, who usually enforce the law, reacted as crime victims surfaced at the recent sentencing of Bruce Allen Doucette.
He was identified as the ringleader of a Colorado-based sovereign citizen, common-law court gang, giving himself the exalted title of “Superior Court Judge of the Continental uNited States of America”
The 57-year-old former computer repair shop owner from Littleton, Colorado, and eight other sovereign citizens formed their own common law court system, something they called the “People’s Grand Jury of Colorado” that operated between 2014 and 2017.
The criminal enterprise, likened to organized crime, targeted at least 37 public officials in five Colorado counties – Denver, Boulder, Gilpin, Jefferson and Pueblo, court filings indicate.
Doucette also traveled to other states, helping fellow sovereign citizens set up their own systems of filing bogus paperwork and liens against public officials.
In Colorado, members of the group made “true threats” against the public officials, sometimes even violating protective orders intended to prevent contact. Judges, prosecutors and law officers who became involved with the group subsequently were inundated with a plethora of bogus paperwork from the sovereign gang.
The government officials, most of them elected by the citizens they serve, reacted variously — some in actual fear for their lives, but almost all concerned about the potential personal financial impact they faced.
The case was investigated as domestic terrorism by the FBI. The investigative results were forwarded to the Colorado State Attorney General’s Office which obtained a 40-count grand jury indictment citing violations of state law, in 2017.
The case revealed Doucette’s “People’s Grand Jury” acted generally after a member of common-law enterprise was named in an actual state, municipal or federal court case — even something as minor as a traffic ticket. In an attempt to derail or jam-up the government or judicial process, the bogus “grand jury” or its “court administrator’ would file fictitious legal documents against the public officials involved.
If those filings didn’t get attention and influence the public officials, the Doucette “grand jury” would then attempt to extort them with financial threats and retaliation. The group had its own “marshals” with authentic-looking badges and were looking for a sympathetic county sheriff to assist in making actual arrests.
“What made this enterprise so concerning was its widespread net of threats it was casting,” First Assistant Attorney General Robert Shapiro said in a Denver courtroom last month when Doucette was sentenced to 38 years in prison.
Doucette’s group filed “criminal complaints” and “consensual commercial liens” against many of the public officials and, when those were ignored, served them with a “collections demand” threatening them with a “negative credit report” if the bogus judgements weren’t paid.
The actions “clearly put many of these public servants — some of whom are armed law enforcement officers — in fear of their economic livelihood being impacted and, at times, their physical safety,” Shapiro said in court.
Before the four-year investigation was concluded, even Shapiro himself was personally targeted in a lawsuit filed against him in U.S. District Court. It was eventually dismissed as frivolous, but only after Shapiro and attorneys representing him went through the trouble, time and cost of seeking dismissal.
At the receiving end of Doucette’s operation were more than three dozen public officials holding various county-level offices in Colorado.
Many of those public official-victims either testified during Doucette’s two-week criminal trial in March or completed “victim-impact” statements forwarded to District Court Judge Michael Spear, the trial jurists from Colorado's 18 Judicial District.
“I believe the defendant threatened my life and my freedom, based upon my oath to uphold the United States and Colorado constitutions,” Boulder County Judge Karolyn Moore said in her victim statement read in court at Doucette’s sentencing on May 22 in Denver.
Because of the defendant’s actions, the judge said, “I continue to be fearful for my safety, the safety of my family, and of my community. I continue to be hypervigilant regarding my surroundings, and I continue to utilize precautions to keep my family and I safe.”
Doucette was convicted of two crimes against the judge – attempting to influence a public servant and retaliation against the judge.
She called him “a threat to me, to the citizens of Colorado, and to the rule of law. He is a domestic terrorist.”
Another of Doucette’s victims, Gilpin County Sheriff Bruce Hartman is used to dealing with hard-core criminals and was caught somewhat off-guard when he was targeted by the common-law court gang, the sentencing judge was told.
“I can’t really quantify what we went through,” Hartman said in a statement read into the public record by Shapiro, the assistant attorney general.
Because the jury unanimously convicted Doucette beyond a reasonable doubt on all counts, the sheriff said he viewed that as a “strong statement” deserving of a correspondingly harsh prison sentence.
Another Gilpin County public official, treasurer Alynn Huffman, also was a victim of criminal extortion by Doucette’s gang. She was impacted, she told the court, “mainly [by] the stress of thinking I had done something wrong.”
“The fear of one of these men coming to the Treasurer’s Office and threatening my staff” also affected her, Huffman told the court. “I took steps to protect my office” because she felt like she was a “sitting duck.”
Shapiro told the court that Doucette and his followers seem to “take joy and glee in causing” the type of stress the county treasurer experienced, hoping their “ideology would dictate and be of influence, extortive and retaliatory against these public officials.”
Doucette was convicted of both criminal extortion and attempting to influence a public servant related to acts taken by him and the gang against Boulder County Sheriff Joseph K. Pelle.
Instead of personal worry, the sheriff asked the court to fashion a tough prison term for Doucette as a deterrent to others.
“In terms of sentencing considerations, these people are intentionally target officials for simply doing our jobs,” the sheriff told the court in his statement read by Shapiro. “Sentencing must consider deterring this behavior in the future by others.”
Doucette was given consecutive sentences on five counts: participating in a racketeering enterprise, 20 years; retaliation against a judge, four years; retaliation against a judge, five years; attempting to influence a public servant, five years; and retaliation against a judge, four years, for a total of 38 years. Sentences for 29 other counts were imposed concurrently with the 38-year term.
In handing out those sentences, Judge Spear made frequent references to the victims’ testimony or impact statements.
On one count, the sentencing judge made note that the victim was fellow Colorado Judge Kim Karn.
“I can well remember the dismay and problems that the actions of the [Doucette] organization caused Judge Karn,” Spear said in court, facing the shackled defendant.
Judge Karn, facing retaliation by the sovereign gang, “had to take unusual steps, not only concerned about her child but also concerned about her elderly parents living close by,” the sentencing judge said.
Karn “was very concerned that this organization had her [home] address, knew where she lived and that fact that she’s not home for most of the day with a teenage daughter in the house and elderly parents in a nearby house.”
“This resonated with the court, and frankly, not just because she’s a judge but because she’s having to deal with this grave concern that she had for others,” Spear said from the bench.
But other public officials, like Gilpin County Attorney James Petrock expressed dismay at being targeted by the sovereign group but told the court that he “has a fairly thick skin … and didn’t seem to be too distressed.”
In contrast, Deputy District Attorney Catherine Kirk, who has previously prosecuted sovereign citizens, “truly was amazed” when she saw members of Doucette’s group being disruptive in a courtroom outburst as they attempted to influence Judge Alfred Harrell.
The deputy prosecutor “reacted much like [others did] and took extra steps to keep herself safe and really became more a ware of her surrounding to a degree that usually you only consider in situations where there is a constant threat,” Spear said, adding that he was very concerned that public officials should be so fearful of merely doing their jobs.
Denver County Sheriff Patrick Firman, like other law enforcement officers who were targeted, “has developed a very thick skin over the course of his career” and “wasn’t too dismayed” when he was targeted by the Doucette gang.
“He was more dismayed about the extra protection that he had to provide to the various public officials in the courthouse,” Spear said of the sheriff, recalling that he “was somewhat dumbfounded that anybody would think of doing this stuff.”
In Pueblo County, Judge Deborah Eyler was targeted by Doucette and five other members of the group who were charged with attempting to influence a public servant.
Instead of being fearful, Eyler testified during that trial that she wasn’t highly concerned.
“I was struck by the fact,” Spear said at the sentencing hearing, “that many public officials, if anything, made jokes about the fact that they are receiving such serious threats to their personal safety and the safety of others around them.”
“Certainly, Judge Eyler was a classic example of somebody who made light of the whole situation,” the sentencing judge said. “I can remember her mentioning the fact, in a very comical way during trial, that this gave her husband an opportunity to purchase another gun.”
At his sentencing, Doucette made a “Yahweh” reference sometimes used by white separatists but had very little to say and expressed no remorse for his antigovernment crime wave.
“Everything that I did was done in honor and integrity to lawfully and peaceably remove the corruption from this government and from these courts,” the gray-haired Doucette told the judge. “May Yahweh have mercy on your souls when he judges you.”
