The city of Sedona is suing six Sedona residents for filing what it states are baseless liens against the members of the previous Sedona City Council, the city attorney, the city’s magistrate judge and the city’s senior code enforcement officer.

According to the city’s complaint, on June 3, 2022, Shelley Evans entered a notice of distress of bond with the Coconino County Recorder’s Office on behalf of Donna Joy Varney, Alissa and Charles Tyler, Gayle Baingo and Theresa Vos against Mayor Sandy Moriarty, Vice Mayor Scott Jablow, City Council members Kathy Kinsella, Tom Lamkin, Holli Ploog, Jon Thompson and Jessica Williamson and City Attorney Kurt Christianson.

The notice alleged that these officials had committed 141 violations of the U.S. Constitution by distressing the claimants’ property rights, misleading the people, acting outside their oaths of office and engaging in “conspiracy against the rights of citizens.”

The notice purported to create a commercial lien against the performance bonds posted by the city on behalf of these officials and demanded $11.2 million in payment for these violations.

On July 15, 2022, Evans reportedly filed an almost identical notice of distress against Magistrate Judge Paul Schlegel and code enforcement officer Brian Armstrong on her own behalf, alleging that they distressed her property and libeled her and demanding $1.1 million in payment for 111 alleged constitutional violations.

Coconino County Attorney William P. Ring informed the recorder’s office on Sept. 22 that the liens were presumptively invalid as they were not entered in pursuance of a court order.

After Evans and her associates refused to release the liens, the city filed a complaint against them in Coconino County Superior Court on April 20.

“Harassing public officials through the filing of baseless nonconsensual liens is a criminal offense,” the city stated in its complaint. The complaint noted that the city does not post bonds for the performance of public officials and instead insures them through the Arizona Municipal Risk Retention Pool.

“These filings were nothing more than an attempt to bully, harass and intimidate these public officials,” the city’s complaint states. “The purpose of this action is to publicly expose defendants’ paper terrorism to obtain redress for defendants’ unlawful acts, and to expunge these baseless filings from the public record.”

The city’s complaint requests damages, a judicial declaration that the notices of distress are invalid, nonconsensual and groundless, attorneys’ fees and costs. Coconino County Recorder Patty Hansen is named in the suit as an additional defendant in her official capacity.

The defendants are still to be served. A full story on this case will be published in the Wednesday, May 3, edition of the Sedona Red Rock News.