CHEHALIS — One week before the General Election, James “Jimi” O’Hagan, the litigious Grayland Republican who is challenging Rep. Brian Bake, D-Aberdeen, for his 19th Legislative District House seat, has been charged with two felonies — possession of a stolen vehicle, and first-degree possession of stolen property. The charges constitute a new chapter in O’Hagan’s already long and colorful history of court proceedings and conflicts, which includes a current effort to sue a Pacific County elected official for as much as $666,666,666,66.

Court-dates for anti-court candidate

A cranberry grower by trade, O’Hagan has recently enjoyed a growing reputation in anti-government internet communities for his efforts to act as a self-described “sovereign” citizen and “legal intervener” during the 41-day standoff at Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

His run for Blake’s 19th Legislative District House seat has also garnered some attention from citizens who take a special interest in matters of property rights and government interference in private affairs. Running on a platform that focuses almost exclusively on evicting attorneys from the state Legislature, O’Hagan, who also advocates for disbarring all Washington attorneys and dismantling the state Commission on Judicial Conduct, took 39 percent of the vote district-wide in the Primary Election. However, in the small, deeply conservative part of Lewis County that falls within District 19, O’Hagan took 65 percent of the vote.

O’Hagan’s apparent popularity with Lewis County voters did not prevent Republican Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer from filing the charges against O’Hagan on Oct. 31, and issuing a Nov. 1 summons for O’Hagan, 62, to appear in Pacific County Superior Court on Nov. 18.

According to documents obtained through a public disclosure request, the charges stem from an ongoing dispute between O’Hagan and Raymond commercial fisherman and environmental consultant Brian Couch, the subject of a Pacific County civil suit initiated by O’Hagan in March 2016.

A Chinook Observer reporter left voice messages requesting comment from Couch and O’Hagan on Nov. 2.

Getting rid of lawyers, holding onto property

In spring 2016, O’Hagan, who claims that Couch owes him money, allegedly took Couch’s Chevrolet Suburban, and his air boat, which has an estimated value of $30,000. In a Nov. 2 phone interview, Meyer said O’Hagan initially borrowed the Suburban with Couch’s permission, and offered to store Couch’s boat for him. He took possession of both vehicles before deciding to file a civil suit against Couch.

“When they were requested back, he refused to provide them,” Meyer explained. “All of a sudden, he refused to return the property.”

Couch, 52, reportedly asked the Pacific County Sheriff’s Office to start an investigation after his own attempts to retrieve the boat and SUV failed. PCSO deputies first contacted O’Hagan on May 14. According to the charging documents, O’Hagan “…admitted to possessing the property … but refused to return the property until such time as he was paid what he claimed he was owed. The defendant refused, without a court order, to return the property.”

Deputies spoke with O’Hagan again on June 2 and June 10, telling him on both occasions that if he didn’t return the property, he would be charged with theft. During the June 10 visit, O’Hagan allowed the deputies to photograph the items belonging to Couch, but, according to the report, “He again said he understood, but refused to return the property.”

Sue, and sue alike

Meyer said that although it’s a Pacific County case, Prosecutor Mark McClain referred it to the Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office to prevent a conflict of interest, because O’Hagan has repeatedly accused McClain and numerous other Pacific County officials, including Sheriff Scott Johnson and Superior Court Judge Michael Sullivan, of corruption.

“There’s some ongoing litigation that Mr. O’Hagan started against Pacific County,” Meyer said. Indeed, according to McClain’s 2016 motion to have O’Hagan designated as a “vexatious litigant.” O’Hagan has also pursued legal action against a county court clerk’s office employee, a local drainage district, South Bend attorney Joel Penoyar, the U.S. Department of Justice, state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, and the Washington State Bar Association, among many others.

A few years ago, O’Hagan’s allegations of misconduct in Pacific County government led then deputy-prosecutor McClain to ask the Washington State Patrol to conduct an independent investigation. The WSP concluded that there was no substance to O’Hagan’s claims, and the Washington Attorney General’s Office ultimately decided not to press charges, according to public records obtained from WSP.

Meyer said he filed the charges only recently, because it took several months to gather and review all of the case information.

“Because it is a property crime, it’s not going to be reviewed as quickly as other crimes. Homicides, assaults or sex crimes — those move to the top of the pile,” Meyer said. “… I’ve been reviewing this one for a quite a while, and we just go ready to charge.”

‘Evil and the Devil’s work’

In June, someone writing under the pseudonym “The Reluctant Activist,” announced on the anonymously registered website www.corruptwash.com, that O’Hagan had filed a defamation suit against McClain and his “accomplices” in local, state, and federal government. In his complaint, which is embedded in the blog post, O’Hagan alleged that McClain damaged his reputation by including his image in a small display of photographs on the wall of the prosecutor’s office.

“Their actions were evil and the devil’s work, and as such, the damages may exceed $666,666,666.66 — Six hundred sixty six million, six hundred sixty six thousand, six hundred sixty six dollars and sixty six cents,” O’Hagan wrote.

On Nov. 2, McClain said in a phone interview that the photographs were there to help his office staff identify individuals who potentially posed security concerns.

“With Mr. O’Hagan in particular, it involved the Washington State Bar and the Attorney General’s office calling to alert us to his potential danger,” McClain said. “They had concerns, and wanted to make sure we were aware of it.”

Alone in a legal wilderness

O’Hagan is no stranger to conflict. In the 1990s, he successfully sued a fellow cranberry farmer, Kenyon Kelly, over a water-rights dispute. However, Kelly, who is now deceased, subsequently made several attempts to file for bankruptcy, and O’Hagan never received the sizable judgment awarded to him. In the years since, O’Hagan’s unsuccessful attempts to obtain the settlement have galvanized his anti-government convictions, and led to dozens of complex, cascading court proceedings, in which he has generally acted as his own attorney, with limited success.

In hundreds of pages of local, state and federal court filings, and social media posts and open letters to public officials, O’Hagan has made increasingly bold claims of corruption and criminal activity among Washington’s attorneys, judges and government employees. Among other things, O’Hagan alleges that the State Department of Ecology in 1999 intentionally burned down its own building to cover up illegal activity, and that U.S. Marshals have attempted to intimidate and harass him.

In a 42-page document filed with the State Supreme Court in June 2015, O’Hagan accused Pacific County Superior Court Judge Michael Sullivan of “… using his official position to steal over $360,000 from me, and providing it to the judgment debtor, so the judgment debtor could solicit a murder-for-hire plot to murder me…”

Thus far, no independent bodies have substantiated any of these allegations.

Concerns about revolution

Fear that government corruption is paving the way for civil unrest — or even revolution — is a recurring theme in O’Hagan’s more recent writings and interviews, including an October Chinook Observer interview, in which he expressed concerns about the inevitability of “some type of world-conflict.”

Further on in the June 2015 document, O’Hagan said he believed collusion among the state’s attorneys, “… has caused our domestic tranquility to be regularly attacked to the point where we have been forced to place armed guards at most of our courthouses and schools in my lifetime, and most of our cities are regularly under attack from the silent majority disguised as protesters.”

In a separate, May 2015 filing with the state Court of Appeals, O’Hagan argued that “lawyer crime” posed an imminent threat to society.

“This type of organized crime and governmental oppression led to the Oklahoma City bombings, the mass murdering of millions of innocent individuals during the Hitler regime, and the deaths of millions of innocent individuals in the struggle for our country to rid itself of ‘Nobility’. … This type of domestic terrorism, if allowed to go without being addressed will lead to horrendous crimes in our society’s future,” O’Hagan wrote.

An April 2016 CorruptWA post titled, “Will O’Hagan be another Levoy Finnicum — murdered by those who swear to protect him?” included a 2016 document filed in Pacific County Superior Court, in which O’Hagan again hinted that he thought his long-running conflicts with government could ultimately boil down to physical confrontation.

“Like my ancestors did several centuries ago, I am going to arm myself with a pitchfork and scythe, and resist the exact same attitudes from individuals who believe they have achieved enough nobility over me to make decisions over me that will affect over my life, liberty and property for generations,” O’Hagan wrote. “My ancestors resisted your ‘Noble Attitude’ to achieve a better life for their children, and so will I, so help me God.”