Before becoming an antigovernment “sovereign citizen,” Rick Van Thiel worked as a porn star, male escort and sex toy inventor in Las Vegas.

Now Van Thiel is in jail there, accused of practicing medicine without a license and claiming to have performed dozens of abortions, circumcisions, castrations, root canals, even cancer treatments.

Meanwhile, the FBI, the Southern Nevada Health District and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department are attempting to locate more than 100 former “patients” of the sovereign citizen-physician who calls himself “Dr. Rick.”

His patients — treated in a ramshackle trailer described as a scene from a horror movie — likely were drawn in by his ads promoting holistic medicine and natural remedies and denouncing conventional medicine, vaccinations, the pharmaceutical industry, GMOs and government interference with health care...

He will be in court later this month in Las Vegas – acting as his own attorney, a frequent practice for sovereigns.

“We do NATURAL REMEDY RESEARCH for the purpose of increasing quality and span of life, one human being at a time,” Van Thiel claims on one of his websites. “Unlike the American medical industry's toxic drug-dealing doctors, we don't see you as your disease.”

Like other extremists, Van Thiel claims chemtrails are evidence the U.S. government is secretly poisoning its citizens.

Van Thiel claimed he performed abortions, removed sebaceous cysts, treated sexually transmitted and life-threatening diseases and provided ozone treatments at “unbeatable prices” in exchange for Bitcoins, gold and silver and firearms.

“I contract privately with people [and] do not contract with government employees of any kind,” he said in advertising his medical services.

“Prior to becoming a professional doctor, I was a sex machine inventor, swinger, BDSM master, porn actor and producer for 14 years, so I've seen it all,” Van Thiel wrote on his site. He claims the title “Dr. Rick” is a nickname, “not intended to infer state sanction or Rockefeller drug pushing training.”

“The purpose of this site is not to beg for FDA endorsement or to diagnose or treat disease, it is to help you make informed decisions necessary to take control of your own life and health, and now to care for it in the manor [sic] you decide is best for you,” a passage on the site reads...

Van Thiel contends prostitution and practicing medicine shouldn't be regulated by the government because they involve “only consenting individuals.” He claims to have studied health and anatomy for 28 years, telling the Las Vegas paper he “has treated hundreds of patients.”

“When I work with people, it's a deal between me and them, not a deal between me, them and the government," Van Thiel told Las Vegas station KVVU-TV.

Van Thiel claims on his website that he treats “morgellons,” a delusional symptom in which patients claim they are infested with disease-causing agents. “Dr. Rick” says the ailment “should be called Genetically Modified Organism Disease” that is a secret government “bio-weapon that has been unleashed on humanity via genetically modified food and Geo-engineering (chemtrails).”