Kent Hovind, the creationist and tax protester known as “Dr. Dino,” was released this week from prison – and Jim Bob Duggar was there to welcome him home.
The minister and conspiracy theorist will spend the final month of his sentence on house arrest, and Duggar joined him for the ride back from federal prison in Mississippi to Pensacola, reported the blog Danthropology.
Hovind’s son, Eric, posted a photo of himself on Facebook riding in the back of a van with his father, his wife, and Duggar, and another post showed the creationist minister enjoying ice cream with his wife at Dairy Queen after stopping for fried chicken.
Hovind was convicted in 2006 of structuring – that is, systematically withdrawing just under $10,000 from the bank to avoid currency reporting – and failing to file payroll returns for his employees, but he presents himself as a victim of an IRS attempt to silence his creationist views, as Forbes reported.
However, online videos and court records indicate Hovind is a tax protester who has engages in a variety of schemes cooked up by the sovereign citizen movement.
He claims in one online video that he had not filed an individual income tax return for 28 years and argues that most Americans are not obligated to pay income taxes.
Hovind spent five years in the early 2000s fighting a $50 building permit for his Dinosaur Adventure Land creationist theme park in Florida, and he eventually was ordered to pay $675 in fines – on top of the tens of thousands of dollars he spent in legal costs.
He also tried a variety of maneuvers to avoid paying income taxes, including filing Chapter 13 bankruptcy, attempting to renounce his U.S. citizenship, arguing that all of his possessions belonged to God, challenging Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme,” and disputing the legitimacy of U.S. laws.
In addition to Duggar -- a former Arkansas lawmaker and close friend of presidential candidate Mike Huckabee – other religious conservatives and libertarians have rallied around Hovind and his cause.
Steve Ham, the director of outreach for Answers in Genesis, also paid a visit to the recently freed creationist minister, according to his son’s Facebook page – although the creationist ministry has feuded with Hovind in the past over interpretations of the Bible.
Eric Hovind rallied to defend Duggar’s son, Josh, when his past sexual abuse of his sisters and another girl came to light in May, saying the disgraced reality TV star and anti-LGBT activist should continue working against marriage equality for the Family Research Council.
