DALLAS — Had he paid his traffic tickets, Jonathan Reynolds likely would have gone about his business without further trouble.
An adherent of a long-standing conspiracy theory, the 34-year-old Tarrant County truck driver believes criminal laws, including traffic laws, do not apply to him. And so he turned two routine traffic tickets into a federal criminal case and a three-year prison term.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth sentenced Reynolds earlier this summer to 3 1/2 years in prison for lying on a federal firearms form. The rarely used charge likely never would have been brought had Reynolds paid his tickets and not tried to bill the Arlington police officer who stopped him $5,000.
