A group in Uintah County upset with the government there is retaliating by slapping bogus multimillion-dollar liens on the officials' personal property.

Prosecutors and law enforcement representatives told lawmakers Tuesday that anti-government groups are abusing personal property lien laws on cars, bank accounts, etc., because there's no criminal penalty for doing so.

Abuse of liens by countergovernment groups prompted the Legislature in the late 1980s to pass stiff penalties for bogus liens placed on real property such as homes.

"This has messed up the credit ratings for judges and prosecutors," said Sen. Beverly Evans, R-Altamont, who is sponsoring SB47, a proposal to make bogus liens a felony offense.

Ken Wallentine, who represents various state law enforcement officer associations, said he faced a $68 million lien placed by a group calling itself the Wampanoag Indian tribe.

Although named after the tribe of Indians that first met the Pilgrims, Wallentine said this group has nothing to do with the current, federally recognized Wampanoag tribe based out of Connecticut.

Wallentine said the group, whose mode of operation is isolationist and secretive, placed a lien on his home because he has a gold-fringed U.S. flag in his office. The lien forced Wallentine to go to federal court to clear up the matter and put the status of his house in limbo for two years.

"It's nothing more than a scare tactic," Wallentine said.

Deputy Attorney General Michael Wims told the Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Standing Committee that a person's credit rating can be smeared by a lien. Unlike real property liens, which are filed in court, personal property liens are filed to the state Department of Commerce. The liens are published and picked up by credit bureaus without question.

Deputy Uintah County Attorney Ed Peterson said the Wampanoag group, which has also called itself the "City of Zarahemla," has been a point of frustration for law enforcement. "They issue their own drivers' licenses," Peterson said, resulting in charges of driving without a license against some of them plus vehicle impounds.

"I like to refer to them as selective anarchists," Peterson said.

The group's leader, David Stevens, is best known for holding a sheriff's deputy at gunpoint for two hours after the deputy tried to serve Stevens with papers notifying him of failing to pay back taxes, Peterson said.

"Now I've got a group of people, who are fully Caucasian, who now consider themselves an Indian tribe," Peterson said.

Committee forwarded the bill unanimously to the Senate floor.

Peterson said he hopes the change in law will put an end to the group's tactics. "If it doesn't then we'll have a very specific law that we will arrest them on," he said.

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E-mail: gfattah@desnews.com