TAX PROTESTER SENT TO JAIL
FOR FORGING COURT ORDERS

Attorney General J. Joseph Curran, Jr. and Maryland Comptroller of the Treasury William Donald Schaefer jointly announced today the sentencing of Dolores E. Scott, 61, an Owings Mills nurse who owes over $20,000 in back taxes. Ms. Scott, a well known tax protester, had previously pleaded guilty to forging two orders purportedly lifting the State’s garnishment of her wages. Judge Patrick Cavanaugh of the Baltimore County Circuit Court sentenced Scott to serve four months in jail and to make restitution to the Comptroller’s Office of the moneys that Scott’s forgeries interfered in the collection of.

Scott, of Rebecca Court in Owings Mills, admitted at her guilty plea on March 10, 2003 to forging court and agency documents in an effort to lift garnishment orders that had been assessed against her wages in order to pay the back taxes she owed. The Comptroller’s Office found out about the forgeries, re-instituted the garnishments, and referred the matter to the Attorney General for prosecution.

The first garnishment was issued in January 2002 and a copy of the Writ was served on Comprehensive Nursing, an at-home nursing placement agency for whom Scott works as a pediatric nurse. The agency began withholding money from Scott’s wages pursuant to the garnishment. In early April 2002, Scott told the agency the garnishment had been lifted and faxed to them what purported to be an order of the Court, releasing the garnishment. This document was a complete forgery. Comprehensive ceased withholding money from Scott’s wages, believing the order to be valid. The Comptroller’s Office, upon being advised by Comprehensive about the "order", advised Comprehensive that it was a forgery, and issued another order, re-imposing the garnishment. Once again, when Comprehensive resumed withholding money from her wages, Scott concocted a second, forged document and served it on Comprehensive, purportedly lifting the garnishment. Upon learning of this second forgery, the Comptroller referred the matter to the Attorney General’s Office for investigation and prosecution.

Underlying her dispute with the Comptroller’s Office is Scott’s belief that as an African American descendant of slaves brought to America against their will, she was not a citizen subject to income taxation. She has lost that argument in every court that has entertained it, the most recent being the Maryland Court of Special Appeals in a reported opinion, Scott v. Comptroller of the Treasury, 105 Md. App. 215 (1995).

In imposing sentence today, Judge Cavanaugh commented that Ms. Scott’s forgeries were "the most blatant" he has ever seen in over 25 years of practicing law. The full sentence imposed was three years to the Division of Correction with all but four months suspended, five years probation, and restitution to the Comptroller of the $4,532 in wages that were not garnished as a result of the Defendant’s forgeries.

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