In USA v. Estes et al., the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia addressed pretrial motions in a wire fraud case involving sovereign citizen ideology. The defendants, Herman Lee Estes, Jr., and Daniel Frank Heggins (a.k.a. Tebnu El-Bey), allegedly employed fraudulent financial instruments and sovereign citizen rhetoric in an effort to acquire a $1.3 million property. The court denied Heggins’s motion in limine to exclude evidence of these tactics, emphasizing their relevance to proving conspiracy, intent, and fraudulent conduct.
The scheme centered on Estes’s use of a fabricated cashier’s check purportedly drawn from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond to close on the purchase of the property. Heggins, falsely posing as the manager of Estes’s trust, approved the transaction. Sovereign citizen-style documents, including trust instruments and promissory notes, played a key role in legitimizing the fraudulent deal. The government argued that these materials were probative of the defendants’ intent to defraud and their conspiracy to misrepresent financial assets.
Heggins sought to exclude evidence of these documents, arguing they were prejudicial, irrelevant, and reflected “bewildering worldviews.” However, the court found that the documents directly demonstrated the defendants’ fraudulent methods and intent, especially as they were integral to the scheme. The government clarified that it would limit the use of sovereign citizen materials to those specifically tied to the real estate transaction.
Additionally, the court rejected Heggins’s attempt to exclude references to his prior supervised release status. This evidence was deemed critical to establishing the interstate nature of the wire fraud, as it demonstrated that Heggins was in North Carolina when participating in fraudulent communications about the Virginia property.
Source: USA v. Estes et al, 2025 U.S. Dist. Ct. Motions LEXIS 7862