I Still May Be Doing A Kent Hovind Interview

This is a follow-up to Monday's post about the challenge I received to interact with Kent Hovind.  For some background on Doctor Dino and his tax woes, you can check out this coverage recap.  You may also want to check out the coverage at quatloos, Bob Baty's facebook page, Kent Hovind's 2 Peter 3 and the Kent Hovind wikipedia entry which is quite thorough and well sourced, even though I get dissed on the talk page.

My interview with Doctor Dino, Kent Hovind, may be back on track.  I heard today from Ernie Land.  Ernie was a trustee of Christian Science Evangelism and Dinosaur Adventureland in the nineties.  He had to step down because he moved.  That is when Glenn Stoll came into the picture and transformed the organization from "pure trust" to "corporation sole.  Stoll may have had something to do with pulling Paul John Hansen, Kent's codefendant in the mail fraud charges into the mix.  It seems like nobody else involved in the whole thing, including Kent, has met Hansen.

Ernie is back to helping Kent and is managing his legal defense fund.

Ernie and I do not have similar world views so we had to agree to disagree on quite a few things.  He summed it up in an e-mail to me:

I could debate the subject of persecution of Kent, but then I would have to raise all the same issues of the Knights cavalier, the illuminati, the holy grail, the ark of the covenant, etc. because all of those relate back to the fallen angel, Satan and his dominion of earth and it’s Governments, so only well studied real Bible believing Christians would buy into my debate, so I’m best not debating Kent’s persecution over creation views and it’s foundation in Genesis, although I feel strongly those are the reasons.

The Illuminati! God Bless you Ernie.  Makes me feel like I'm in a Dan Brown movie.   Or maybe Chevy Chase.  If an albino shows up, I don't know what I will do.

We did agree on one thing though.  Kent is not being entirely frank with the people he is stirring up to defend him. When Ernie was involved with CSE and DAL is the nineties, Kent was not charging admission to DAL.  He was accepting donations, which could be substantial.  He was paying all his help - mainly college and high school kids - in cash, but he was pretty loosey goosey about supervising.  Maybe there was a case, an exceedingly weak case, that everything was covered by Code Section 102 (Income tax exclusion for gifts).  Regardless, after Ernie left, Kent started having the help punching a clock, which removed the last vestige of an argument that they were not employees.

In talking to his followers Kent has been harping on the injustice of his conviction for "structuring", that is doing cash receipts and withdrawals in amounts less the $10,000 to avoid currency reporting requirements.  Well the first twelve counts of the indictment were not about structuring.

KENT E. HOVIND
a resident of Pensacola, Florida, who owned and operated CSE in Pensacola, Florida and as such, was the person responsible for collecting and paying over federal income tax and FICA tax for CSE, and who, during the quarters of the tax years specified below, did willfully fail to deduct, collect, truthfully account for and pay over to the IRS federal income tax and FICA tax from the total taxable wages of CSE employees which were due and owing to the United States of America, in the approximate amounts enumerated below, by failing to file the appropriate IRS Form 941, Employer’s Quarterly Federal Tax Return for CSE and on the due dates, and failing to withhold and pay federal income tax and FICA tax to the IRS

.And of course, the 45 withdrawals of $9,500 or $9,600 were necessary in order to pay the "missionaries" in cash.

Ernie believes that Kent's behavior may have been legally sound under his interpretation of the Constitution, but he also recognizes that the courts have uniformly ruled against such theories.  He reminds me of Irwin Schiff's sons.  They think their father is right, but do not encourage people to follow in his footsteps.  Ernie is pleased that Eric has chosen to run a conventional 501(c)(3) and thinks it would be best if Kent just worked inside that ministry.  He also said that there may be substantial backers for another theme park, but that they would expect conventional tax compliance.

Kent apparently is still not listening and believes that he will be vindicated, get a huge judgement from the government making him able to pay for a park himself.  

 I've contacted the team at Interlock Media  that filmed my Jill Stein interview.  Gods Property Radio seems to have dropped out of the picture.  We'll see how this develops - or evolves.