A Pine Bluff man handed his "diplomatic identification card" and driver's license to a local officer during a traffic stop in the fall, then told another officer that the first one "needs to hurry up and process my diplomatic information because I need to get on up out of here," the assisting officer testified Wednesday.
Testifying as a government witness in The-Nimrod Sterling's ongoing federal trial for impersonating a foreign diplomat and being a felon in possession of a firearm, Detective Matthew Pate also told jurors that although he never heard Sterling's cellphone ring, Sterling picked the phone up and talked into it, saying, "Yes sir, I understand. I understand. I appreciate you calling to check on me."
After putting the phone down, Sterling turned to the officers and told them: "That was the director of the FBI. When he saw that my name was being flagged, he called and wanted to know why I was being detained," Pate recalled.
Sterling, 42, who legally changed his name from Nimrod Sanders to The-Nimrod Sterling, is representing himself, with assistance from appointed standby counsel Nicole Lybrand of the federal public defender's office. Prosecutors contend Sterling faked diplomatic status to repeatedly evade traffic tickets and also possessed a shotgun despite an earlier conviction that prohibits him from owning firearms.
In his cross-examination of Pate, Sterling asked if perhaps Pate hadn't correctly remembered their roadside encounter.
"Are you certain that I didn't speak about making another complaint to the FBI on the Pine Bluff corruption team?" he asked.
"Yes," Pate replied. "I'm clear on this."
Sterling produced a certified mail receipt indicating that he had mailed something to the deputy director of the FBI in Washington, D.C., and asked again, "So you are certain I didn't just say I would file another complaint with the deputy director?"
"Yes sir, absolutely," Pate replied.
Sterling asked whether Pate was aware that he had filed numerous complaints with the Pine Bluff Police Department about problems with officers.
Pate said he had "no knowledge whatsoever" of any complaints.
Speaking with sarcasm to suggest police held a grudge against him, Sterling questioned Pate about why he just "showed up" at the traffic stop. Pate replied that police policy requires the nearest officer to assist in a traffic stop if a backup officer hasn't arrived.
Sterling also questioned a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent about the time notations on search warrants for Sterling's Pine Bluff home and limousine Oct. 14 and questioned a State Department agent about the notations on a rights form that Sterling initialed that same day.
The agents searched Sterling's home and vehicle on the authority of a U.S. magistrate judge after former employees of Sterling -- who said he hired them to drive him and his wife, Kayan, to events -- reported seeing guns and hearing Sterling threaten to kill any officer who tried to arrest him and "bury him in the woods" behind his house. The employees told authorities that Sterling wanted to be addressed as "ambassador," and they should address his wife as "ambassadress."
In an interview after agents found items in Sterling's house that identified the bearer as a diplomat from the "Republic of Conch," Agent Joseph Mahoney with the State Department testified that Sterling denied he had pretended to be a foreign diplomat entitled to immunity from criminal charges in America.
"He said, 'I'm not a diplomat like those that go overseas,'" Mahoney said.
He said Sterling denied paying for his "ambassadorship," saying the republic simply gave him the title after he wrote a letter describing all the good things his "foundation" wanted to do.
Mahoney -- who once lived and worked in Florida, where Sterling said the sovereign nation exists -- testified: "I feel that the Conch Republic is a novelty. It's a joke. ... It is not a real thing."
Sterling then entered into the court record a document called "a brief history of the Conch Republic," after Assistant U.S. Attorney Linda Lipe insisted that jurors see the entire website from which the document came -- www.conchrepublic.com -- "to corroborate it's a novelty."
The website says the republic's only foreign policy is "for the mitigation of world tension through the exercise of humor," and it shows pictures of Conch Republic "passports" that look identical to some insignias on Sterling's identification card as well as his collection of magnets and paraphernalia. It invites viewers to "shop online for passports and official Conch Republic gear," directing visitors to "Click here to enter our country."
The "brief history" page claims that "the Conch Republic was established by secession of the Florida Keys from the United States of America on April 23, 1982," in response to a U.S. Border Patrol roadblock that "portrayed Keys residents as non-U.S. citizens who had to prove their citizenship in order to drive onto the Florida mainland! Hardly an American thing to do!"
It also says, "Contrary to recent reports, the name 'Conch Republic' refers to 'all' of the Florida Keys," and says its passports, diplomats and citizens "have been well received by 13 Caribbean nations as well as Germany, Sweden, Havana, Mexico, France, Spain, Ireland and Russia."
Sterling said he plans to call witnesses when the defense begins its case at 9 a.m. today.
Metro on 05/21/2015