The Atheist Experience has Kent Hovind’s phone calls from jail online. Hovind is such a pretentious fraud; he compares himself to George Washington and the IRS to the Mafia and Hitler’s minions, and insists through it all that he’s completely innocent. He also makes the claim that the people persecuting him will get their comeuppance on Judgement Day—that belief must be such a consolation to many petty crooks.
I did feel a little sympathy for his wife, who does express some worry and remorse…and good ol’ Kent just barrels over her concerns and tries to tell her what the law is. That tactic worked on his wife, but it doesn’t seem to have impressed the lawyers or judge.
I wonder if Kent’s wife has considered divorce?
I am sure she has considered it as the fog is likely lifting for her now.
As I have explained here, it’s not like Hovind didn’t have fair warning about the trouble he would get into with the IRS.
Wow, this is so sad. they really need to get that idiot some counseling.
Though I don’t feel sorry for him one bit.
Lie all your life, then cry when you pay for it…
Kent Hovind is as out of touch with reality as George W Bush! But then, both of them know they are doing God’s work!
Sceptical, I hate to say it, but, Kent Hovind is far more out of touch with reality than Mr Bush.
At least Mr Bush has some sense to (insincerely) admit that he did wrong, and attempt to (insincerely) make amends with his political rivals. (Hey, it took him 5, 6 years to do that, but, hey, he did it, and that’s more than we can hope for Hovind can ever do)
Well, Hovind DID at least get the whole “The IRS is the Mafia” part right.
The guys a fraud and a kook and a bastard. But he doesn’t deserve to rot in jail for trying to protect his money from being stolen by gangsters in expensive suits.
Kent Hovind is, I think, much more valuable to society out of jail preaching his junk science rather than having you and me pay for his showers and meals and healthcare in some concrete hole in the ground.
Taxes are your membership fee for belonging to a civilised society. You can argue about how they’re raised (progressive/regressive taxation, poll taxes, sales taxes), you can argue about how they’re spent (for example, free public health care might be a good thing), that’s what a democracy is for, but Hovind was not trying to prevent his money being stolen; he was trying to avoid paying the taxes he was legally liable for.
It is mind boggling to me that a prisoner would say anything of substance on a jailhouse phone. There’s a sign on the phone that says the call is being recorded and a recording when you pick up that says the same. I’ve heard the dumbest, stupidest, loserest drug dealers tell the person on the other line not to say anything incriminating because the conversation is being recorded.
Not only did Hovind trample his wife and shoot himself in the foot for sentencing purposes, he put his son in jeopardy by advising him to hide assets while alerting the authorities that he was doing so.
Those recordings chomped him at sentencing and will be replayed at his parole hearings.
Flocks have continued to send donations to preachers who embezzled money, molested children, cheated on their wives, lied to their families, and committed any number of other appalling crimes.
My point isn’t that preachers are somehow more evil than non-preachers, but that some gullible folk will always follow them, no matter what.
I doubt Hovind’s wife will divorce him. I doubt most of his congregation of xian “science buffs” will stop following him. These people are deeply entrenched.
An awful lot of women in prison have a story that basically goes: I trusted my guy, and he had me do something that got me in trouble with the law. And Mrs. Hovind–who is facing serious time herself–falls into this category.
In fact, I’m sure Hovind played that “good Christian wives obey their husbands” card every chance he got–a point I hope her attorney will emphasize at the sentancing hearing. (Also, that she gets her own lawyer.)
But even good Christian wives can be pushed too far. My take is that (a) the Hovinds’ marriage is circling the drain, and (b) the divorce will come as a complete surprise to absolutely no one except Ken Hovind.
This is 2nd hand mind you, but on another forum I asked if Hovind had a lawyer. I couldn’t beleive that he wasn’t told to shut up. The response was that he had public defender assigned to him but he decided to defend himself,hence the lame brained discussions. Anybody know anything different?
I have long thought that fanatics such as ID’ers[iots], creationists, evangelicals, etc. exhibit a pathology well known in entomology as delusory parasitosis. I did comment on this a few months back– but seems appropriate again here. The two groups share a need to prove a thing beyond all common sense. In entomology this takes the form of a client bringing in literally hundreds of samples to ‘prove’ they have an infestation– usually ‘lint-on-tape’ with labels and dates. In creationism, etc. this takes the form of assembling hundreds of reason-free ‘factoids’ to ‘prove’ their point.
Well, I suppose if you accept that Adam froliced with dinosaurs 6000 years ago, it’s not much of a stretch to say Washington was plagued by mobsters and Nazis.
Buck up Kent! With that sort of time dilation, you should be out of jail by next week.
I doubt Hovind’s wife will divorce him.
I doubt that she won’t. For one thing, most marriages just don’t survive prison. For another, now that she’s outside of his influence, it’s going to dawn on her that she’s got lousy taste in men.
Hovind was originally provided a public defender, but then hired Alan Stuart Richey, a lawyer out of Port Hadlock, Washington. Pt Hadlock is about 35 miles from Edmonds, Wa, home of Glen Stoll, Hovind’s tax advisor.
When you listen to the recordings, you’ll hear him refer several times to advice from “Glen”. I suspect that is Stoll, the fraud and tax kook.
That section on the recording where he asks his wife to name the specific law he broke “You cant do it because there is no such law” – its pretty much the same way he treated the evidence for evolution. He just ignores the plain facts and uses a sincere tone to badger those he lectures to (his wife in this case) to believe him.
You notice Kent hesitated a second when Jo said something to the effect that she didn’t understand how he could be right and maybe they should change their ways (or she should), before he said, “That’s one option. Another option is when your husband goes off to fight the British, the wife should back him up.” (Something like that.)
I wonder if the hesitation was because 1) he got scared she might act independently, 2) he didn’t have a ready response, or 3) he affects hesitation in his speech to give the impression he’s considering a point someone made.
My fear of human irrationality compels me to hope he experienced a moment of doubt.
Wow, a peek into being the wife of a fundy. “Yes, honey.” “Amen.” “Uh-huh.” “I hope you do,” blah, blah. And then,
Hovie: “Maybe I should sue them [again]…let’s fight Hitler/the British/the Wildebeest/ad nauseum.”
Mrs. Hovie: “NO!”
Poor thing.
But this struck me funny: “If I get out, I’ll leave them [the IRS] alone. If I don’t get out, I’m gonna go after ’em!” Oooh, baby, I’m sure the IRS is shaking in its boots. “They [the IRS] are the tax protestors!” Yeah, sure.
Man, I hope he does sue. For one thing, that means he’s still in prison.
The local YEC newsletter I get still lists drdino.com as a recommended website, along with the ICR, AiG, Walt Brown, etc. Dunno if that means they support Hovind, or just aren’t paying attention to the news. As it happens, this bunch strikes me as oblivious enough to be the latter. (It’s actually refreshing to encounter a group that doesn’t even try to hide their religious motives behind the faux-science facade of ID.)