CHARLESTON – A well-known Charleston photographer and architect claims government officials have violated his rights and conspired against him.
Henry “Ted” Elden Jr. filed his complaint in Kanawha Circuit Court against Corporal C.J. Rider of the Charleston Police Department.
In his complaint, Elden says he was in his vehicle on Louden Heights Road near Newton Road in Charleston at 8:40 p.m. on March 21, 2015, when Rider approached him and asked for identification.
“The plaintiff stated he was (a) private man traveling in his private vehicle,” the complaint states. “Plaintiff asked the defendant to prove that defendant had sworn an oath of office for his supposed authority and how did that relate to the original state and federal constitutions.
“The defendant did not know about these subjects and would not acknowledge if he had any oath, duties or obligations. He brought forth many other policemen to exercise threat and force.”
Elden appeared before Kanawha County Magistrate Tim Halloran, and Rider “completed paperwork that caused plaintiff to be imprisoned for weeks in South Central Jail.”
Elden claims he didn’t consent to the actions against him and verbally protested. He also says he didn’t see evidence the defendants had to “grant them jurisdiction of plaintiff’s person” to stop, interrogate, terrorize, capture, handcuff, charge and imprison him. He says those actions have caused him numerous losses and or damage, and or acquiring rights to lawful fees.
Elden – who believes in sovereign state rights and finding ways to avoid paying the federal government “what everyone else pays,” according to multiple online searches – says he sent a notice via certified mail to city, county and state officials of a lawful protest explaining his status and standing. He also filed to protect use of name by copyright and trademark and/or service mark.
He also publicly establishing lawful notice of his price list and fee schedule for “any activity involving this estate.” The list includes such items as assault by officer ($100,000), abuse of power ($20,000), false arrest ($100,000), concurring quantum entanglements ($200,000), fruit of the poisonous tree ($100,000), logistical inconsistencies ($10,000), psychological warfare ($1,000,000) and Cloward-Pivens Strategies ($1,000,000).
Elden also says the defendant must prove if the charges against him are private or public, what laws he is applying and whether government buildings are private.
Toward the end of his complaint, Elden also includes a Simplex Dictum.
“Power is never without responsibility,” he writes. “When authority derives in part from government’s thumb on the scales, the exercise of that power by private persons becomes closely akin, in some respects, to its exercise by government itself.”
Elden is representing himself. The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey.
Elden’s father Henry was a well-known architect and Charleston leader who built the circular Top-O-Rock house overlooking downtown Charleston. He died in 2009, and the house was sold in 2011 to a Charleston physician who intended to lease it for office space. But that never happened, and the building was demolished earlier this month.
In 2007, Ted Elden was found to have stalked and harassed a Parkersburg couple for more than a year after their wedding that he had photographed. An attorney said Elden mailed cut-up photo negatives to the couple, the woman’s parents and other members of their families. He was ordered to pay $550,000 to the couple, $400,000 of that was punitive damages.
Kanawha Circuit Court case number: 15-C-1632