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GOVERNMENT TO RETURN SEIZED LIBERTY DOLLARS
We haven't heard much lately on the Liberty Dollar front, but Paul Gilkes of Coin World dug up some new court documents
indicating that the Federal Government will be returning many of the coins seized in a 2007 raid. -Editor
Millions of dollars' worth of silver, gold, platinum and copper Liberty Dollar medallions and related property seized by federal authorities in 2007 will be returned to their owners, according to court documents. The return of that property, however, is being delayed until all petitions filed seeking return of the property have been completely processed and any appeals finalized. In documents filed Aug. 14 in U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina in Statesville by Acting U.S. Attorney Jill Westemoreland Rose, 265 of the 302 petitions filed for the return of property were approved. The court documents indicate the government is willing to settle 27 petitions in part. Seven petitions have been denied, four are in question and one petition is to be refiled. Despite the 2011 conviction of Liberty Dollar creator Bernard von NotHaus on charges related to the manufacture and distribution of Liberty Dollars, U.S. District Court Judge Richard L. Voorhees ruled in late 2014 that seized property not deemed as contraband should be returned pursuant to ownership claims. Von NotHaus, who faced 22 years in prison for his 2011 conviction, was sentenced Dec. 2, 2014, by Judge Voorhees to three years of probation and six months under house arrest. Von NotHaus introduced the Liberty Dollar in 1998, marketing the pieces using NORFED, the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve and the Internal Revenue Code. The organization touted Liberty Dollars as an alternative to Federal Reserve notes, and sought to develop a network of merchants that would accept them in lieu of Federal Reserve notes.
At the recent NLG Symposium at the ANA show in Rosemont, I participated on a panel discussing the impact of the Internet on numismatic
journalism. I made sure to point out the important difference between part-time bloggers like me and real numismatic journalists like
Paul. His article illustrates the difference quite well. We need full-time sleuths like him digging behind the scenes, filing Freedom of
Information Act requests, interviewing people, piecing together the facts and publishing the news that the rest of us react to and
republicize for other audiences. His article was published August 19th and at the time Google News had no articles on the topic from
anywhere. Great job. -Editor
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Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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