# Moorish Sovereign Citizens Stealing Houses



## Kanky (Oct 1, 2021)

She Bought Her Dream Home. Then a ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Changed the Locks.​A New Jersey woman was preyed upon by a fast-growing extremist group that claims its members are sovereign Moors, not bound by U.S. laws.​Published Sept. 26, 2021Updated Sept. 29, 2021





Shanetta Little was startled one day to find that the locks on her new home in Newark had been changed by a man who claimed he was the rightful owner.Bryan Anselm for The New York Times
The official-looking letters started arriving soon after Shanetta Little bought the cute Tudor house on Ivy Street in Newark. Bearing a golden seal, in aureate legalistic language, the documents claimed that an obscure 18th-century treaty gave the sender rights to claim her new house as his own.
She dismissed the letters as a hoax.
And so it was with surprise that Ms. Little found herself in her yard on Ivy Street on a June afternoon as a police SWAT team negotiated with a man who had broken in, changed her locks and hung a red and green flag in its window. He claimed he was a sovereign citizen of a country that does not exist and for whom United States laws do not apply.
Ms. Little was a victim of a ploy known as paper terrorism, a favorite tactic of an extremist group that is one of the fastest growing, according to government experts and watchdog organizations. Known as the Moorish sovereign citizen movement, and loosely based around a theory that Black people are foreign citizens bound only by arcane legal systems, it encourages followers to violate existent laws in the name of empowerment. Experts say it lures marginalized people to its ranks with the false promise that they are above the law.
The man who entered her house, Hubert A. John of Los Angeles, was arrested on June 17 and charged with criminal mischief, burglary, criminal trespass and making terroristic threats. Prosecutors in New Jersey are preparing to take the case before a grand jury, according to Katherine Carter, a spokeswoman for the Essex County Prosecutor’s office. He was released on his own recognizance.
But the strange letters declaring that Ms. Little’s home is not her own still come. They arrive on faux-consular letterhead using the name Lenapehoking of the Al Moroccan Empire at New Jersey State Republic. Lenapehoking was the land between New York City and Philadelphia that includes New Jersey and was home to the Indigenous Lenape tribe before it was colonized by European settlers. Mr. John and his group refer to themselves as Moors.
“The Moors claim to be about Black liberation and opportunity, and uplifting Black people,” Ms. Little said in an interview seated on a staircase inside her house. “But he is literally oppressing me and taking what’s mine as a Black woman.”




Ms. Little still receives strange letters like the one that upended her life in June.  Bryan Anselm for The New York Times
This past summer the Moorish movement exploded into public view, after Ms. Little posted viral TikTok accounts of her ordeal and when the police pulled over members of a militant offshoot of the group on a Massachusetts highway. That subgroup, known as Rise of the Moors, engaged in a standoff with the police for more than nine hours, claiming that as sovereign citizens, law enforcement had no authority to stop them. No one was injured; 11 people were arrested and charged with unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition, among other offenses.
Increasingly, across the country sovereign citizens have clashed with the authorities, tied up resources and frazzled lives in their insistence that laws, such as the requirement to pay taxes, obey speed limits and even obtain, say, a license for a pet dog, do not apply to them.
People who claim to be Moorish sovereign citizens believe they are bound mainly by maritime law, not the law of the places where they live, said Mellie Ligon, a lawyer and author of a study of their impact on the judicial system in the Emory International Law Review.
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Initially espoused by white supremacist groups, sovereign citizen ideology first cropped up in America in the 1970s, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Moorish permutation appears to have picked up in popularity in the 1990s, inspired in part by Black identity ideology of a similarly named religious group, the Moorish Science Temple of America, which disavows the sovereign citizen movement.
Membership in the Moorish sovereign citizen movement has been driven by the internet into the hundreds of thousands, the law center said. On its website, Rise of the Moors, for example, has cited reparations — part of national conversations about race and equity — as a driving factor for its belief that its members can claim things as their own.
Rise of the Moors, as well as the individual members arrested in Massachusetts in July, did not respond to requests to comment.


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## nysister (Oct 1, 2021)

These hotels are getting out of hand. Really cute how they attack Black people.

They're going to mess with the wrong person one day.


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## nysister (Oct 1, 2021)

Do those documents have bloody thumb prints?

For crying out loud.

I'd charge them with biological terrorism as well.


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## nysister (Oct 1, 2021)

Two more things.

So are they Moors or Native Americans? Pick one. True Moors have NO claim to American land.

She's pretty.

Okay, I'm done.


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## Theresamonet (Oct 1, 2021)

And he chose a black woman to do this to, out of all the available white owned homes in Jersey. Typical.


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## Black Ambrosia (Oct 1, 2021)

I saw this story a few days ago and couldn't bring myself to finish the article. I wouldn't even want to be in my house after someone squatted in it. Was all her stuff there when she got inside? I'm thinking about how my bank statements, checkbooks (archaic I know), and other financial stuff are scattered throughout my home. They could continue to violate her. They obviously have no boundaries.


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## Black Ambrosia (Oct 1, 2021)

Theresamonet said:


> And he chose a black woman to do this to, out of all the available white owned homes in Jersey. Typical.


You know that was intentional. They probably thought she wouldn't have the know-how or resources to get them out quickly. They'd rather someone try to force themselves inside and prompt a standoff where the rightful owner looks like an intruder and gets locked up.


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## Crackers Phinn (Oct 1, 2021)

My friends sisters baby daddy got her into the Moorish America nonsense 20 years ago and she ended up losing her house because this  tole her that after she paid for her card declaring her Moorish American that she no longer had to pay taxes.  Uncle Sam said


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## Dee Raven (Oct 1, 2021)

I'll never forget that time I ran into one of these guys. We were having the most lovely converseration and then it was like the soundtrack of Jaws came on. WTH. Such beautifully functioning neurons to have corrupted by crazy.


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## frizzy (Oct 1, 2021)

Lawd, a close relative of mine is on this trajectory.   BUT last time I spoke with her,  I think she said she quit the temple.


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## nysister (Oct 1, 2021)

It's like the Black version of Q Anon. Just insane. Ship them both off together.


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## Theresamonet (Oct 1, 2021)

I'm not convinced that all of these people truly believe this nonsense. It seems like most are just using it as a cover to scam, defraud, and steal.


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## Black Ambrosia (Oct 1, 2021)

I remember this making the news in Atlanta maybe 15 years ago. I think they’re all scammers plus a few people they’ve  duped who are quickly relieved of their assets.


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## naturalgyrl5199 (Oct 4, 2021)

Wasn't Deon Sander's ex-wife caught up with the Moors at one point?


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## Crackers Phinn (Oct 4, 2021)

naturalgyrl5199 said:


> Wasn't Deon Sander's ex-wife caught up with the Moors at one point?


Naw that was Genuine's ex wife Sole married Prof Griff from Public Enemy in a Moorish "wedding".


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## Black Ambrosia (Oct 4, 2021)

Crackers Phinn said:


> Naw that was Genuine's ex wife Sole married Prof Griff from Public Enemy in a Moorish "wedding".


They're Moors??? 

I'm not gonna pretend I was a huge PE fan but I'm definitely looking at all of em different now. For years Flavor Flav looked like an outlier with his drug abuse but, now that I know Chuck D is making excuses for Robert Sylvester Kelly and Professor Griff is a Moor, all I see is a dumpster fire of black men.


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## Crackers Phinn (Oct 4, 2021)

Black Ambrosia said:


> They're Moors???
> 
> I'm not gonna pretend I was a huge PE fan but I'm definitely looking at all of em different now. For years Flavor Flav looked like an outlier with his drug abuse but, now that I know Chuck D is making excuses for Robert Sylvester Kelly and Professor Griff is a Moor, all I see is a dumpster fire of black men.


Girl all of Public Enemy is Trash.  They had us all fooled because Chuck D could complete sentences and them fake NOI dudes wasn't in street clothes but that all them "good black men" hung out with Flavor Flav should have let us know all the apples came from the same tree.   Chuck D made excuses for R Pissy because his message was black power only applies to black men.  

KRS One ain't pooh either.  He told on hisself with the 13 and good but showed his  with Afrika Bam-touches kids.

Anyhow,  here is Sole and Griff's Moorish (Moroccan inspired) "wedding"  likely it's a commitment ceremony cuz these dudes don't believe in the white man's piece of paper.


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## luckiestdestiny (Oct 4, 2021)

Theresamonet said:


> I'm not convinced that all of these people truly believe this nonsense. It seems like most are just using it as a cover to scam, defraud, and steal.


This. Quoted for emphasis.


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## Evolving78 (Oct 4, 2021)

naturalgyrl5199 said:


> Wasn't Deon Sander's ex-wife caught up with the Moors at one point?


She was too…


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## Crackers Phinn (Oct 4, 2021)

I stand corrected, Deion Sanders ex was mixed up with this nonsense too.   The Moorish American's tend to recruit women who look like Pillar Sanders and Sole cuz now I think of it my friend and her sister that I referenced upthread look like them too.


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## Black Ambrosia (Oct 4, 2021)

Crackers Phinn said:


> KRS One ain't pooh either.  He told on hisself with the 13 and good but showed his  with Afrika Bam-touches kids.


I vaguely remember the song not sitting well so I looked up the lyrics and I'm not sure if it was him affirming multiple times that the 13 year old was "good" or the narrative about the father that's supposed to make you forget how much he enjoyed her.

You're right. All of them were


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## Black Ambrosia (Oct 4, 2021)

Crackers Phinn said:


> I stand corrected, Deion Sanders ex was mixed up with this nonsense too.   *The Moorish American's tend to recruit women who look like Pillar Sanders and Sole *cuz now I think of it my friend and her sister that I referenced upthread look like them too.


Of course they do. These hoteps are consistent in their hypocrisy.


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## naturalgyrl5199 (Oct 7, 2021)

Black Ambrosia said:


> I vaguely remember the song not sitting well so I looked up the lyrics and I'm not sure if it was him *affirming multiple times that the 13 year old was "good" or the narrative about the father that's supposed to make you forget how much he enjoyed her.*
> 
> You're right. All of them were


OMG! Off to read up on it.


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## Tibbar (Oct 10, 2021)

Wow! So many thoughts... 
1. How often is this happening?
2. Where is it happening?
3. How do they pick their victims?
4. Are there locations where these tactics are more / less likely to suceed?
5. Are there sufficient laws in place to charge those who attempt this ?

Can't believe he was ROR'd for this. I'd be terrified him or his cronies would come back...

Al Gore's internet can be a wonderful place, but it has certainly allowed previously isolated (potentially dangerous) weirdos to find each other and to feed on each other's craziness and to grow their memberships to increasingly hazardous levels...

* Dark times *


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## VinaytheMrs (Oct 11, 2021)

My sister is using this Moor foolishness currently in a case with CPS! Two kids in foster care (I just got fingerprints to get them out) and two others with their Dad. Hot mess.


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## naturalgyrl5199 (Oct 12, 2021)

VinaytheMrs said:


> My sister is using this Moor foolishness currently in a case with CPS! Two kids in foster care (I just got fingerprints to get them out) and two others with their Dad. Hot mess.


Are they in NY?
There is a couple who had their kids removed and I think they are Moors. Nevertheless the removal was shady AF.


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## VinaytheMrs (Oct 12, 2021)

naturalgyrl5199 said:


> Are they in NY?
> There is a couple who had their kids removed and I think they are Moors. Nevertheless the removal was shady AF.


No we are in Ohio. I’ve been meaning to make a post so much has happened venting and healing are much needed.


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