EXCLUSIVE: Sovereign Citizen With Past Felonies Charged After Numerous Guns Found In Home

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This LevittownNow.com story has been supported in part by funding from In The Know Club members. 

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Curtis G. Smith declared to the court system that they had “no jurisdiction” over him. While he held that belief, authorities knew that wasn’t true and took him into custody this week for alleged contempt of court and reportedly found a stockpile of weapons at his home, according to court papers.

Smith, 42, purchased the home at 596 Langhorne-Yardley Road, just a stone’s thrown from the Middletown Township Municipal Complex, for $575,000 last August. Within months, according to public records reviewed by this news organization and accounts from nearby residents, he had ruffled feathers and the township’s code enforcers were investigating work taking place at the property.

One of the biggest issues was Smith’s construction of a fence that violated township regulations. The township filed violations in district court and then took the rare step of obtaining an injunction to take down the fence.

Resident James Besler said at last month’s Middletown Township Board of Supervisors meeting that the fence that went up at Smith’s yard risked causing crashes at the intersection.

Other residents have said there had been near misses due to the illegally-erected fence blocking a driver’s vision at the intersection of Valley View Road and Winchester Avenue, which is next to where Smith’s home sits.

Residents have been meeting with township officials since unauthorized construction began at the home of Smith, who appears to subscribe to the beliefs of the sovereign citizen movement, a group often known for its extreme anti-government views and the belief they are not citizens of the U.S. The movement often misinterprets laws and the U.S. Constitution and can be violent at times.

Middletown Township solicitor James Esposito said last month that Smith ducked constables and Bucks County Sheriff’s Office deputies who tried to serve him with court papers.

On Tuesday, Smith was taken into custody for contempt of court by the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas.

Shortly after, Middletown Township officers and Chief of Police Joseph Bartorilla responded to the home after the sheriff’s office and the Bucks County Department of Corrections alerted law enforcement that Smith claimed his 2-year-old child was alone at the home, according to an affidavit of probable cause.

Officers made entry to the home and did not locate a child or signs of a child. However, police said they found several guns in plain view throughout the home. Among the guns was a revolver holstered by the front door, a rifle on a couch, and two rifles in a bedroom.

Smith has past felony convictions for receiving stolen property and aggravated assault. He is barred from owning a firearm, court papers said.

Investigators had a search warrant approved by a judge and began an extensive search of the residence.

The search led to significant police activity on Langhorne-Yardley Road and Valley View Road, according to neighbors.

Police said they found a Glock 10.. handgun with a micro-conversion kit attached, an AR rifle, a Sig Sauer P380 9mm handgun, a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun, a Smith and Wesson .38 revolver, a Zastava Arms rifle, body armor, several loaded magazines, and boxes of ammunition.

Smith, who was already jailed for contempt of court, was preliminarily arraigned Thursday morning on seven charges of possession of a firearm while prohibited and one charge of unlawful body armor and false reports. His bail in that case was set at 10 percent of $5 million by Senior District Judge Joanne Kline.

Esposito, the township’s attorney, has said a judge ordered Smith to pay $110,000 for the violations to the township.

One nearby resident, who didn’t wish to have their name published due to concerns for their safety, said it was a “relief” Smith was in custody. They stated the situation has been a nightmare for residents on Valley View Road.

LevittownNow.com reviewed numerous court filings related to the home in recent weeks.

Tom McCool, Middletown Township’s assistant director of building and zoning, has sent letters to Smith for performing work without permits and disregarding stop work orders. McCool wrote in a filing that he met with Smith on more than one occasion and watched illegal construction taking place.

Township officials filed citations against Smith.

A review of records showed Smith returned them with a red stamp that read “united state of America Republic, UCC 1-308 Without Prejudice, Refused/Returned/Offer Not Accepted, No Contact / this instrument is VOID, I am a non-citizen national-foreign to the U.S. – No Jurisdiction.”

At last month’s supervisors’ meeting, Karen Dalrymple, a neighbor, raised worries that a court could negotiate down the thousands of dollars in fines issued to Smith.

“What if all of us ignored the township regulations, ordinances, and zoning? What would happen then? This is one man causing all this trouble,” Dalrymple said. “He just seems to be getting away with so much.”

The sovereign citizen movement began in the 1970s and has grown over the decades. Many claim that the U.S. government is illegitimate, some sovereign citizens are uncooperative with government officials, including police, and sometimes refuse to pay taxes and vehicle registration fees. In some cases, sovereign citizens display fake license plates on their vehicles, claiming the right to travel means they don’t have to register their vehicles.

Terry Nichols, one of the men behind the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, believed some aspects of the sovereign citizen movement, according to reports.

Law enforcement in the U.S. and other parts of the world have reported violence by some subscribers of the unconventional belief system.

Editor’s Note: All individuals arrested or charged with a crime are presumed innocent until proven guilty. The story was compiled using information from police and public court documents.

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