Denny Hardin is a model prisoner, except for all of those lawsuits

Denny Hardin's going to sue his way right out of jail. Just you watch!

​Whenever I needed to call the Moberly Correctional Center about Denny Hardin, head of the Americans Republic Party, whoever I talked to would always say somewhere near the end of the conversation, "He's an interesting guy, isn't he?"

The subject of this week's print feature, "Don't Tread On Him," Hardin's at the start of a five-year sentence for violating his probation. Oddly enough, his crime was fraud for starting his own bank and writing more than $160 million in bonded promissory notes to pay off people's home loans (which he did).

In 2006 Hardin tried to arrest Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder on the steps of the capitol building in Jefferson City for violating the U.S. Constitution. But Hardin ended up in handcuffs himself. When deciding the terms of his probation, the courts thought it would be better if he stopped providing the legal counsel to his friends that led them to believe ambushing a public official was a good idea. Hardin didn't agree, and putting him behind bars has only surrounded him with people eager to get a free consult.

According to Dean Minor, the Moberly warden, Hardin's days are mostly spent in the law library, alternately working on his own case as well as filing motions for the inmates around him. Hardin insists the inmates haven't really committed a crime if no one was hurt and no property was damaged. Shocking that he could find an innocent man in jail, right?

"We have inmates who've actually trained to be law clerks, and that's their job while they serve their term. Denny hasn't done that," Minor says. "We certainly don't encourage inmates to use him. We can discourage someone's legitimacy, but there's no rule against it. Sometimes the inmates don't always trust us to provide the best legal help either.

"Other than suing me every day, Hardin's actually a pretty good inmate. I get something in the mail pretty regularly. I forward it on to our attorneys and they deal with it. I don't know how sound his lawsuits are, but we have to deal with them. He's sued most of the people in the government. ... I think all the way up to the federal level. But other than that, he behaves very well."