Liberty Dollars Fight Back
by Simon Constable, TheStreet.com Staff Reporter, Dec
07, 2007
Simon Constable
iberty Dollar,
the firm that got raided by the FBI [1]
before Thanksgiving for trying to start a precious-metals-based
currency to compete with the greenback, now says it's back in
business.
Well, sort of.
Bernard von
NotHaus
The company's founder, Bernard von NotHaus, said in an email
Thursday that he's changed the firm's name to Liberty Dollar
Numismatics. And he's also trying to raise money by converting
any previously issued Liberty Dollar coins into an Arrest Dollar
marked with a special miniature handcuffs hallmark.
Add to that a plan to file a class-action lawsuit and a request
for donations. But NotHaus hasn't got a bank account -- the FBI
closed it down after the November raid. So he's asking for
checks to be made out to "Bernard," and mailed to the firm's old
address in Evansville, Ind.
"We are still looking forward to our day in court," says NotHaus.
"But the federal government is a formidable foe."
Liberty came to prominence in July after it started minting
solid silver coins stamped with an image of Ron Paul, [2] a
Republican presidential hopeful and an avid supporter of a
return to the gold-standard monetary system.
But the operation seemed to come to an abrupt halt when the
Secret Service and the FBI raided the firm's Evansville office
in mid-November and confiscated all materials, including the
precious-metal Liberty Dollar coins and the Ron Paul dollars.
Von NotHaus says he'll take any previously issued Liberty Dollar
or Ron Paul dollar coin for a fee of $10 and put the money
toward his legal defense fund. He says he expects to be arrested
on a multitude of charges, including money laundering and
conspiracy, but he's not quite sure when.
The class-action lawsuit against the government is aimed at
retrieving property owned by Liberty's customers, but which was
confiscated during the raid.
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