Bow man who copyrighted name faces more jail time

[movieguy]

Bow man who copyrighted name faces more jail time

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A man who says he copyrighted his name and claims people must pay him $500,000 each time they use it faces more jail time for filing frivolous liens against lawyers and public officials.

A state Supreme Court justice will decide this week whether to impose a suspended sentence on Ghislain Breton of Bow after Breton threatened to file a new round of liens. Justice James Duggan heard the case on Friday.

Breton, 40, a former carpenter, claims that people must pay up each time they use his name. He filed liens for millions of dollars against the lawyer and state officials who handled his divorce.

Liens are easy to file in New Hampshire and don’t require a judge’s signature. But removing them can be costly. The tactic is promoted by anti-government groups.

Breton’s already serving 18 months in the Merrimack County jail on the first round of charges. He faces up to seven more years in jail after refusing to promise that he’d stop trying to file new liens.

Breton has said his legal fight is an attempt to regain custody of his four daughters.

"My thinking was that you were being led along in this enterprise by other people and that you were not very serious about it," Duggan told Breton. "And frankly, there are a lot more dangerous people in prison than you. But you are serious."

Prosecutors said the liens temporarily prevented one woman from selling her house and dissuaded another from getting a loan for her child’s college tuition.

Last month, the attorney general’s office won a temporary restraining order preventing the liens from being placed, partly because Duggan, prosecutors and a state investigator received notice that Breton intended to file liens against them, too.

"This has taken over your life, Mr. Breton," Duggan said. "Before you got yourself into this mess, you were a hardworking man ... and a family man."

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