Larken Rose, a tax protester who dared the US Justice Department to indict him so he could prove to a jury that the tax laws are a fraud, was convicted on Friday on five counts of willfully failing to file tax returns.
The jurors took less than 90 minutes to come to a decision.
The verdicts are the latest setback for followers of Rose, two of whom are now serving long prison sentences.
A handful of others face trial, including his wife, Tessa David.
Despite these convictions, the small but growing number of Americans who believe that the federal government is a criminal organization that illegally extracts taxes, appears undeterred.
Rose's weeklong trial in US District Court here drew a larger crowd than the courtroom of Judge Michael Baylson could seat.
One supporter, a minister, handed out brochures saying that God had condemned to Hell those lawmakers who voted for the tax laws as well as employees of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Rose, 37, a medical transcriptionist from Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, is the leading promoter of the so-called 861 position, which holds that wages earned by Americans working for domestic companies are not taxable.
Section 861 of the tax code specifies that wages are taxable.
Rose's claim is based on regulations, written by IRS lawyers, explaining the code section.
Judges, in detailed rulings since 1966, have held that the theory is "nonsensical" and frivolous.
Despite this, Baylson let Rose explain the theory.
Rose, who represented himself, delivered a fiery hour-long closing argument on Friday, denouncing the federal government.
He likened it to a bully wielding a baseball bat who demands that one say that two plus two equals five.
"Wham!" Rose shouted, swinging his arms as if to clobber someone with an imaginary bat who insists that the answer is four.
He said the government "wants to oppress other people" and is "a throwback to medieval times."
And he said that starting in 1998 he stopped filing tax returns because that would "be lying and committing a fraud."
Rose argued for his acquittal because, he said, he sincerely believed he did not have to pay taxes.
Floyd Miller, the prosecutor, belittled this claim and said that Rose could have taken the IRS to civil court to test his theory.
He said Rose just wanted to find an excuse to not pay his taxes.
Miller quoted from an e-mail message in which Rose, calling himself an anarchist, contacted the Montana militia to propose a "bloodless coup."
In another e-mail message, Rose wrote that "I don't actually like the Constitution," and added that "I cannot choose to believe someone else over my judgment," and "I feel no obligation to obey" the law.
The prosecutor said that "Mr. Rose selectively educated himself," picking language from 18th-century court rulings, "but ignoring recent rulings by judges in three recent cases" in which Rose was involved.
In two of those cases judges upheld injunctions against other promoters of the 861 position.
In the third, Rose testified on behalf of a Texas businessman, Richard Simkanin, who stopped withholding taxes from his employees' paychecks.
An appeals court last week upheld both the conviction and sentence of Simkanin.
When the verdicts were read out, Rose, 37, dropped his head into his hands. Later, he waved off a request for comment.
Baylson ordered Rose confined to his home until he is sentenced on Nov. 15. The maximum prison time he could face is five years.
The judge said that if Rose filed his tax returns and arranged to start paying his taxes he would be lenient in sentencing, but that if he did not, the sentence would be harsh.
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