“Sacramento Bee Document Sunday, April 3, 2011 12:26 PM From: "NewsBank -- service provider for Sacramento Bee Archives" <sacbee@newsbank.com> Add sender to Contacts To: EricDiesel1@yahoo.com The Sacramento Bee SACRAMENTO BEE February 13, 1995 "NATION' WAGING "SPIRITUAL WAR' ON STATE OFFICIAL Author: Michael G. Wagner Bee Staff Writer Edition: METRO FINAL Section: METRO Page: B1 Estimated printed pages: 3 Article Text: Pearlasia , president of the Dominion of Melchizedek, has declared war on a California deputy attorney general. State and U.S. officials are not too concerned, since they say the Dominion of Melchizedek exists only in the minds of a few people and may be the front for illegal activity. On the other hand, Pearlasia says the state of California doesn't exist . The declaration of "spiritual war" from the leader of the "ecclesiastical sovereignty" was the latest salvo in an odd legal skirmish that began last June when Pearlasia , also known as Elvira Gamboa , came to the attention of the California State Banking Department . She had tried to obtain a $20,000 auto loan from a small Shasta County bank, identifying herself as an official of "Bankasia A.G. ," said Steven Suchil, Banking Department counsel, and the local bank alerted the state. Suchil wrote to Pearlasia , admonishing her that only entities authorized by the superintendent of banking could call themselves banks. Although it isn't known whether she ever accepted a deposit or transacted any real banking in California, authorities sued her in Shasta County Superior Court to stop her from doing business as any of 11 different banks, such as the Zurich Credit Bankers A.G. or Asia Pacific Bank Ltd. But Pearlasia and her Dominion of Melchizedek decided to fight - after a fashion. "Under the Constitution of the Dominion of Melchizedek," Pearlasia wrote in a Feb. 1 letter, "we hereby declare spiritual war on all California government officials of your character, not to harm, but only to bless our enemies." "I will do metaphysical battle with you in your dream state ," she wrote to Steven Green, the deputy attorney general who represents the Banking Department against Pearlasia in Shasta County, "and if you interpret your dreams correctly you will know that I am the victor. " Although amused by Pearlasia's unusual letters , Green said the matter has a serious s! ide. The concern, he said, is Pearlasia's relationship to a Tahoe-area man who calls himself Branch Vinedresser (alias David Korem, Mark Logan Pedley) . Vinedresser, according to state officials and published accounts, is a pseudonym for Mark Logan Pedley, a former Sacramento man twice convicted of fraud for his involvement in a real estate swindle and a scam involving the conversion of Mexican pesos into dollars. The Dominion of Melchizedek, authorities say, is the invention of Vinedresser/Pedley, who found the name in the Old Testament and may have recently moved its headquarters to the remote mountainous area of Shasta County called Big Bend. "Melchizedek doesn't exist, it's a scam," said Dan Kiser, a cartographer with the U.S. Geographer, a branch of the State Department. "It doesn't exist except in the minds of the people trying to scam others." The fictitious dominion first came to his branch's attention in 1991, Kiser said, "when a gentleman from Texas, trying to solicit funds, called jus! t to verify whether we recognized such a country. We don't." Kiser said the matter was turned over to the FBI . "This was more of a legal or criminal issue," he said. Nevada authorities investigated Vinedresser and Melchizedek after Forbes Magazine published stories in 1991 that Vinedresser was selling Melchizedekian corporate charters, officials said, including one that figured prominently in an offshore insurance scam that operated in California. The company, California Pacific Bankers & Insurance Ltd., was shut down by the California Department of Insurance . Authorities now are trying to determine whether Vinedresser "has just changed the location to Shasta County," Green said. "I do not believe that Pearlasia came up with these names and activities on her own and I don't find it to be a coincidence that Vinedresser and she are living together," Green said. Vinedresser was convicted of mail and interstate fraud in 1983 and sentenced to three years in prison for selling land he didn't own in Sacramento , according to officials and published accounts. He was convicted again in 1986 for the peso conversion scam and served a brief prison sentence in Nevada. In a long, rambling letter with 36 pages of attachments faxed to The Bee last Tuesday, Pearlasia , wrote, "There has never been a bank in Big Bend California !!! and California knows that well!!!" She went on to state that the dominion is not involved in the insurance industry in California. Among the attachments was a January 1995 "profile" of the dominion, describing it as "an ecclesiastical and constitutional sovereignty" with land and treaty affiliations with the Ruthenian People, a cultural group from a region in Ukraine as well as a small Polynesian island 1,000 miles south of Tahiti. The dominion claims this island territory is represented by an ambassador named Harvey Penguini, Suchil said. Meanwhile, until Pearlasia agrees to cease operating in California, the legal case will continue , Green said. And that may keep the spiritual war alive. "The world is a very big place, and for you to categorically deny the existence of the Dominion of Melchizedek, gives me the right to say the state of California does not exist ," Pearlasia wrote to Green. "Therefore, it being a figment of your imagination, I can ignore your legal proceedings (harassment)." “