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Domestic Terrorism

The Sovereign Citizen Movement

04/13/10- FBI

Domestic terrorism—Americans attacking

Americans because of U.S.-based extremist

ideologies—comes in many forms in our post 9/11

world.

To help educate the public, we’ve previously

outlined two separate domestic terror threats—eco-

terrorists/animal rights extremists and lone offenders.

Today, we look at a third threat—the “sovereign

citizen” extremist movement. Sovereign citizens

are anti-government extremists who believe that

even though they physically reside in this country,

they are separate or “sovereign” from the United States. As a result, they believe they don’t have

to answer to any government authority, including courts, taxing entities, motor vehicle

departments, or law enforcement.

This causes all kinds of problems—and crimes. For example, many sovereign citizens don’t pay

their taxes. They hold illegal courts that issue warrants for judges and police officers. They clog

up the court system with frivolous lawsuits and liens against public officials to harass them. And

they use fake money orders, personal checks, and the like at government agencies, banks, and

businesses.

That’s just the beginning. Not every action taken in the name of the sovereign citizen ideology

is a crime, but the list of illegal actions committed by these groups, cells, and individuals is

extensive (and puts them squarely on our radar). In addition to the above, sovereign citizens:

Commit murder and physical assault;

Threaten judges, law enforcement professionals, and government personnel;

Impersonate police officers and diplomats;

Use fake currency, passports, license plates, and driver’s licenses; and

Engineer various white-collar scams, including mortgage fraud and so-called

“redemption” schemes.

Sovereign citizens are often confused with extremists from the militia movement. But while

sovereign citizens sometimes use or buy illegal weapons, guns are secondary to their anti-

government, anti-tax beliefs. On the other hand, guns and paramilitary training are paramount to

militia groups.

During the past year, we’ve had a number of investigative successes involving sovereign

citizens. A few recent cases:

Some examples of illegal license plates

used by so-called sovereign citizens.

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In Sacramento, two sovereign citizens were convicted of running a fraudulent insurance

scheme. Operating outside state insurance regulatory guidelines, the men set up their own

company and sold “lifetime memberships” to customers, promising to pay any accident

claims against their “members.” The company collected millions of dollars, but paid out

very few claims.

In Kansas City, three sovereign citizens were convicted of taking part in a conspiracy

using phony diplomatic credentials. They charged customers between $450 and $2,000

for a diplomatic identification card, which would bestow upon the holder “sovereign”

status—meaning they would enjoy diplomatic immunity from paying taxes and from

being stopped or arrested by law enforcement.

In Las Vegas, four men affiliated with the sovereign citizen movement were arrested by

the Nevada Joint Terrorism Task Force on federal money laundering, tax evasion, and

weapons charges. The investigation involved an undercover operation, with two of the

suspects allegedly laundering more than a million dollars from what they believed was a

bank fraud scheme.

You can help. First, “be crime smart”—don’t fall for the bogus claims and scams of sovereign

citizens. And second, if you have information on any suspicious activities or crimes, please

contact us.

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Sovereign Citizens Movement- Southern Poverty Law Center

The strange subculture of the sovereign citizens movement, whose adherents hold truly bizarre, complex antigovernment beliefs, has been growing at a fast pace since the late 2000s. Sovereigns believe that they — not judges, juries, law enforcement or elected officials — get to decide which laws to obey and which to ignore, and they don't think they should have to pay taxes. Sovereigns are clogging up the courts with indecipherable filings and when cornered, many of them lash out in rage, frustration and, in the most extreme cases, acts of deadly violence, usually directed against government officials. In May 2010, for example, a father-son team of sovereigns murdered two police officers with an assault rifle when they were pulled over on the interstate while traveling through West Memphis, Ark.

The movement is rooted in racism and anti-Semitism, though most sovereigns, many of whom are African American, are unaware of their beliefs' origins. In the early 1980s, the sovereign citizens movement mostly attracted white supremacists and anti-Semites, mainly because sovereign theories originated in groups that saw Jews as working behind the scenes to manipulate financial institutions and control the government. Most early sovereigns, and some of those who are still on the scene, believed that being white was a prerequisite to becoming a sovereign citizen. They argued that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which guaranteed citizenship to African Americans and everyone else born on U.S. soil, also made black Americans permanently subject to federal and state governments, unlike themselves.

The Sovereign Belief System The contemporary sovereign belief system is based on a decades-old conspiracy theory. At some point in history, sovereigns believe, the American government set up by the founding fathers — with a legal system the sovereigns refer to as "common law" — was secretly replaced by a new government system based on admiralty law, the law of the sea and international commerce. Under common law, or so they believe, the sovereigns would be free men. Under admiralty law, they are slaves, and secret government forces have a vested interest in keeping them that way. Some sovereigns believe this perfidious change occurred during the Civil War, while others blame the events of 1933, when the U.S. abandoned the gold standard. Either way, they stake their lives and livelihoods on the idea that judges around the country know all about this hidden government takeover but are denying the sovereigns' motions and filings out of treasonous loyalty to hidden and malevolent government forces.

Though this all sounds bizarre, the next layer of the argument becomes even more implausible. Since 1933, the U.S. dollar has been backed not by gold, but by the "full faith and credit" of the U.S. government (in fact, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ended private ownership of gold in large amounts in 1933; governments could still sell gold for dollars to the U.S. Treasury for a fixed amount after that, until that practice was ended by President Richard Nixon in 1971). According to sovereign "researchers," this means that the government has pledged its citizenry as collateral, by selling their future earning capabilities to foreign investors, effectively enslaving all Americans. This sale, they claim, takes place at birth. When a baby is born in the U.S., a birth certificate is issued, and the hospital usually requires that the parents apply for a Social Security number at that time. Sovereigns say that the government then uses that birth certificate to set up a kind of corporate trust in the baby's name — a secret Treasury account — which it funds with an amount ranging from $600,000 to $20 million, depending on the particular variant of the sovereign belief system. By setting up this account, every newborn's rights are cleverly split between those held by the flesh-and-blood baby and the ones assigned to his or her corporate shell account.

The sovereigns believe evidence for their theory is found on the birth certificate itself. Since most certificates use all capital letters to spell out a baby's name, JOHN DOE, for example, is actually the name of the corporate shell identity, or "straw man," while John Doe is the baby's "real," flesh-and-blood name. As the child grows older, most of his legal documents will utilize capital letters, which means that his state-issued driver's license, his marriage license, his car registration, his criminal court records, his cable TV bill and correspondence from the IRS all will pertain to his corporate shell identity, not his real, sovereign identity.

The process sovereigns have devised to split the straw man from the flesh-and-blood man is called "redemption," and its purpose is two-fold. Once separated from the corporate shell, the newly freed man is now outside of the jurisdiction of all admiralty laws. More importantly, by filing a series of complex, legal-sounding documents, the sovereign can tap into that secret Treasury account for his own purposes. Over the past 30 years, hundreds of

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sovereigns have attempted to perfect the process by packaging and promoting different combinations of forms and paperwork. While no one has ever succeeded, for the obvious reason that these theories are not true, sovereigns are nonetheless convinced with the religious certainty of a true cult believer that they're close. All it will take, say the promoters of the redemption scam, is the right combination of words.

Numbers It is impossible to know how many sovereigns there are in the U.S. today, in part because there is no central leadership and no organized group that members can join. Instead, there are a variety of local leaders with individualized views on sovereign citizen ideology and techniques. Those who are attracted to this subculture typically attend a seminar or two, or visit one of the thousands of websites and online videos on the subject and then simply choose how to act on what they've learned. Some start by testing sovereign ideology with small offenses such as driving without a license, while others proceed directly to taking on the IRS as tax protesters.

In the mid-1990s, the IRS estimated that there were approximately 250,000 tax protesters in the U.S., people who believe that the government has no right to tax income. Not all of them were full-blown sovereign ideologues. Since the late 1990s, an abundance of evidence suggests that the sovereign citizen movement's growth has been explosive, although there have been no more recent IRS estimates because Congress in 1998 prohibited the agency from tracking or labeling those who file frivolous arguments in lieu of paying their taxes. But a conservative estimate of the number of all kinds of tax protesters today would be about 500,000.

Using this number and information derived from trials of tax protestors and reports from government agencies, a reasonable estimate of hard-core sovereign believers in early 2011 would be 100,000, with another 200,000 just starting out by testing sovereign techniques for resisting everything from speeding tickets to drug charges, for an estimated total of 300,000. As sovereign theories go viral throughout the nation's prison systems and among people who are unemployed and desperate in a punishing economy, this number is likely to grow.

Tactics The weapon of choice for sovereign citizens is paper. A simple traffic violation or pet-licensing case can end up provoking dozens of court filings containing hundreds of pages of pseudo-legal nonsense. For example, a sovereign was involved in 2010 in a protracted legal battle over having to pay a dog-licensing fee. She filed 10 sovereign documents in court over a two-month period and then declared victory when the harried prosecutor decided to drop the case. The battle was fought over a three-year dog license that in Pinellas County, Fla., where the sovereign lives, costs just $20. Tax cases are even worse. Sovereign filings in such legal battles can quickly exceed a thousand pages. While a normal criminal case docket might have 60 or 70 entries, many involving sovereigns have as many as 1,200. The courts are struggling to keep up, and judges, prosecutors and public defenders are being swamped.

The size of the documents is an issue, but so is the nonsensical language the documents are written in. They have a kind of special sovereign code language that judges, lawyers and other court staff simply can't understand (nor can most non-sovereigns). Sovereigns believe that if they can find just the right combination of words, punctuation, paper, ink color and timing, they can have anything they want — freedom from taxes, unlimited wealth, and life without licenses, fees or laws, are all just a few strangely worded documents away. It's the modern-day equivalent of "abracadabra."

Since most sovereigns favor paper over guns, when sovereigns are angry with government officials, their revenge most often takes the form of "paper terrorism." Sovereigns file retaliatory, bogus property liens that may not be discovered by the victim until they attempt to sell their property. Sovereigns also file fake tax forms that are designed to ruin an enemy's credit rating and cause them to be audited by the IRS. In the mid-1990s, a period when the sovereign movement was also on the rise, several states passed laws specifically aimed at these paper terrorism tactics.

Recruits In the late 2000s and early 2010s, most new recruits to the sovereign citizens movement are people who have found themselves in a desperate situation, often due to the economy or foreclosures, and are searching for a quick fix. Others are intrigued by the notions of easy money and living a lawless life, free from unpleasant consequences. Many self-identified sovereigns today are black and apparently completely unaware of the racist origins of their ideology. When they experience some small success at using redemption techniques to battle minor traffic offenses or local licensing issues, they're hooked. For many, it's a political issue. They don't like taxes, traffic laws, child support obligations or banking practices, but they are too impatient to try to change what they dislike through traditional, political means.

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In times of economic prosperity, sovereigns typically rely on absurd and convoluted schemes to evade state and federal income taxes and hide their assets from the IRS. In times of financial hardship, they turn to debt- and mortgage-elimination scams, techniques to avoid child support payments, and even attempts to use their redemption techniques to get out of serious criminal charges.

Once in the movement, it's an immersive and heady experience. In the past three decades, the redemptionist subculture has grown from small groups of like-minded individuals in localized pockets around the nation to a richly layered society. Redemptionists attend specialized seminars and national conferences, enjoy a large assortment of alternative newspapers and radio networks, and subscribe to sovereign-oriented magazines and websites. They home-school their children so that a new generation will not have to go through the same learning curve that they did to see past the government's curtain to the common-law utopia beyond.

While the techniques sold by promoters never perform as promised, most followers are nonetheless content to be fighting the battle, and they blame only the judges, lawyers, prosecutors and police when their gurus' methods fail. While most have never achieved financial success in life, they take pride in engaging the government in battle, comparing themselves to the founding fathers during the American Revolution.

Violence When a sovereign feels particularly desperate, angry, battle-weary and cornered, his next government contact, no matter how minor, can be his final straw. The resulting rage can be lethal. In 1995 in Ohio, a sovereign named Michael Hill pulled a gun on an officer during a traffic stop. Hill was killed. In 1997, New Hampshire extremist Carl Drega shot dead two officers and two civilians, and wounded another three officers before being killed himself. In that same year in Idaho, when brothers Doug and Craig Broderick were pulled over for failing to signal, they killed one officer and wounded another before being killed themselves in a violent gun battle. In December 2003, members of the Bixby family, who lived outside of Abbeville, S.C., killed two law enforcement officers in a dispute over a small sliver of land next to their home. And in May 2010, Jerry and Joseph Kane, a father and son sovereign team, shot to death two West Memphis, Ark., police officers who had pulled them over in a routine traffic stop. Later that day, the Kanes were killed in a fierce shootout with police that wounded two other officers.

The Sovereigns: Tips for Law Enforcement

Unfortunately for law enforcement, self-described "sovereign citizens" don't come with a warning label. In the past, most sovereigns were white supremacists organized into small groups that typically all used the same "private" license plate instead of legal tags. Today, while that is sometimes still true, the ideology of the sovereign citizen movement has spread to the point where adherents hail from any race and are found throughout the nation. And they do not all necessarily carry fake license plates or bear other obvious markers. Still, there are common traits that law enforcement officers can and should be on the alert for. They include:

License plates with oddball names like the "Kingdom of Heaven" and the "Little Shell Pembina Band," which is a

fake Indian tribe that runs a redemption scam. The FBI has a brochure available for all law enforcement agencies that includes pictures of a variety of sovereign plates.

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Two vehicles with no registered license plates are parked outside an apartment complex in Columbus, Ohio. AP photo

Antigovernment bumper stickers.

Unusual use of outdated language. A simple question like, "Where are you headed?" may get you a response

along the lines of, "I am a free man, traveling upon the land."

An arrogant or belligerent attitude. Sovereigns believe that they have secret knowledge about a complex

government conspiracy that most Americans, including law enforcement officials, are too stupid to comprehend.

Anti-Federal Reserve or banking comments, even though all you are discussing is a driver's license, registration

tags or traffic infractions. Anger towards other government agencies such as FEMA, the EPA, the U.S. Post Office and the Census Bureau is common.

Unsolicited anti-Semitic comments, either outright or veiled.

Odd punctuation of names, typically involving colons and hyphens.

The absence of a zip code in adherents' addresses (sometimes, the zip code is present, but placed in brackets).

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Home • Stats & Services • Reports and Publications • LEB • September 2011 • Sovereign Citizens

Sovereign Citizens

Sovereign Citizens A Growing Domestic Threat to Law Enforcement By the FBI’s

Counterterrorism Analysis Section

Sovereign Citizens

A Growing Domestic Threat to Law Enforcement

By the FBI’s Counterterrorism Analysis Section

© Thinkstock.com

They could be dismissed as a nuisance, a loose network of individuals living in the United States

who call themselves “sovereign citizens” and believe that federal, state, and local governments

operate illegally. Some of their actions, although quirky, are not crimes. The offenses they do

commit seem minor: They do not pay their taxes and regularly create false license plates, driver’s

licenses, and even

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currency.

However, a closer look at sovereign citizens’ more severe crimes, from financial scams to

impersonating or threatening law enforcement officials, gives reason for concern. If someone

challenges (e.g., a standard traffic stop for false license plates) their ideology, the behavior of these

sovereign-citizen extremists quickly can escalate to violence. Since 2000, lone-offender sovereign-

citizen extremists have killed six law enforcement officers. In 2010, two Arkansas police officers

stopped sovereign-citizen extremists Jerry Kane and his 16-year-old son Joseph during a routine

traffic stop on Interstate 40. Joseph Kane jumped out of the vehicle and opened fire with an AK-47

assault rifle, killing both officers.

The sovereign-citizen threat likely will grow as the nationwide movement is fueled by the Internet,

the economic downturn, and seminars held across the country that spread their ideology and show

people how they can tap into funds and eliminate debt through fraudulent methods. As sovereign

citizens’ numbers grow, so do the chances of contact with law enforcement and, thus, the risks that

incidents will end in violence. Law enforcement and judicial officials must understand the

sovereign-citizen movement, be able to identify indicators, and know how to protect themselves

from the group’s threatening tactics.

Ideology and Motivation

The FBI considers sovereign-citizen extremists as comprising a

domestic terrorist movement, which, scattered across the United

States, has existed for decades, with well-known members, such as

Terry Nichols, who helped plan the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma,

bombing. Sovereign citizens do not represent an anarchist group,

nor are they a militia, although they sometimes use or buy illegal

weapons. Rather, they operate as individuals without established

leadership and only come together in loosely affiliated groups to

train, help each other with paperwork, or socialize and talk about

their ideology. They may refer to themselves as

“constitutionalists” or “freemen,” which is not necessarily a

connection to a specific group, but, rather, an indication that they

are free from government control. They follow their own set of

laws. While the philosophies and conspiracy theories can vary

from person to person, their core beliefs are the same: The government operates outside of its

jurisdiction. Because of this belief, they do not recognize federal, state, or local laws, policies, or

regulations.1

One prevalent sovereign-citizen theory is the Redemption Theory, which claims the U.S.

government went bankrupt when it abandoned the gold standard basis for currency in 1933 and

began using citizens as collateral in trade agreements with foreign governments.2 These beliefs can

provide a gateway to illegal activity because such individuals believe the U.S. government does not

act in the best interests of the American people. By announcing themselves as sovereign citizens,

they are emancipated from the responsibilities of being a U.S. citizen, including paying taxes,

possessing a state driver’s license, or obeying the law.

The FBI considers

sovereign-citizen

extremists as

comprising a domestic

terrorist movement…

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Illegal Activity

The Redemption Theory belief leads to their most prevalent

method to defraud banks, credit institutions, and the U.S.

government: the Redemption Scheme. Sovereign citizens

believe that when the U.S. government removed itself from the

gold standard, it rendered U.S. currency as a valueless credit

note, exchanging one credit document (such as a dollar bill) for

another. They assert that the U.S. government now uses citizens

as collateral, issuing social security numbers and birth

certificates to register people in trade agreements with other

countries. Each citizen has a monetary net worth, which they

believe is kept in a U.S. Treasury Direct account, valued from

$630,000 to more than $3 million. These accounts, they claim,

are in a third-party’s name, a “strawman,” that they can access,

which they commonly refer to as “freeing money from the

strawman.” In essence, it is extorting money from the U.S.

Treasury Department. Sovereign citizens file legitimate IRS and

Uniform Commercial Code forms for illegitimate purposes,

believing that doing so correctly will compel the U.S. Treasury

to fulfill its debts, such as credit card debts, taxes, and

mortgages.3

At a minimum, these activities create a voluminous influx of documents that clog the courts and

other government agencies. But, the idea behind the Redemption Theory also leads sovereign

citizens to find criminal sources of income as they travel the country, teach fraudulent tactics to

others for a fee, and participate in white collar crimes. The latter offenses include mail, bank,

mortgage, and wire fraud; money laundering; tax violations; and illegal firearms sales and

purchases.

At seminars, sovereign citizens charge participants a fee in exchange for information on

Redemption Theory schemes and other methods to avoid paying taxes, sometimes even selling

materials, such as CDs or DVDs. They also sell fraudulent documents—including drivers’ licenses,

passports, diplomat identification, vehicle registrations, concealed firearms permits, law

enforcement credentials, and insurance forms—to other sovereign citizens and illegal immigrants

and charge fees for “consultant services” to prepare sovereign-citizen paperwork. Several recent

incidents highlight their activities.

In Sacramento, California, two sovereign-citizen extremists were convicted of running a fraudulent insurance scheme, operating a company completely outside of state insurance regulatory authorities. The men sold “lifetime memberships” to customers and promised to pay any accident claims against members. The company collected millions of dollars, but paid only small auto insurance claims and ignored large ones.4

In Kansas City, Missouri, three sovereign-citizen extremists were convicted in a phony diplomatic credential scandal. They charged customers between $450 and $2,000 for a diplomatic identification card that bestowed “sovereign status,” supposedly to enjoy diplomatic immunity

Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building,

Oklahoma City.

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from paying taxes and from stops and arrests by law enforcement.5 In Las Vegas, Nevada, four men affiliated with the sovereign-citizen-extremist movement were

arrested by the Nevada Joint Terrorism Task Force on federal money laundering, tax evasion, and weapons charges. The undercover investigation revealed that two of the suspects allegedly laundered more than a million dollars and collected fees for their services.6

One example of a white collar crime that escalated into a standoff includes a New Hampshire

husband and wife convicted of federal income tax evasion, failure to honor federal payroll taxes,

and other conspiracy fraud charges. Elaine A. and Edward L. Brown, both sovereign-citizen

extremists in their 60s, never appeared at their 2007 trial or at sentencing. In protest, the Browns

barricaded themselves in their home during the summer and fall of 2007, receiving supporters,

issuing militant and threatening statements, and stockpiling weapons and explosives. They were

charged with weapons offenses after their arrest in October 2007 when law enforcement discovered

pipe bombs, improvised explosive devices made of gun powder cans with nails and screws taped to

the outside, and a large cache of handguns and rifles that included .50-caliber rifles.7

However, even when sovereign citizens go to prison for crimes, they continue criminal activity

behind bars. Inmates provide a new population for them to sway to adopt the sovereign-citizen

ideology; they then can train these inmates to help them defraud banks, credit institutions, and the

U.S. government. They can create fraudulent businesses from inside prison walls and complete

fraudulent financial documents to receive lines of credit from legitimate banks. The learning system

goes both ways—inmates can teach sovereign citizens new criminal methods that they can use

either from inside the prison or when they are released.

Indicators

Sovereign citizens often produce documents that contain peculiar

or out-of-place language. In some cases, they speak their own

language or will write only in certain colors, such as in red crayon.

Several indicators can help identify

these individuals.

References to the Bible, The Constitution of the United States, U.S. Supreme Court decisions, or treaties with foreign governments8

Personal names spelled in all capital letters or interspersed with colons (e.g., JOHN SMITH or Smith: John)

Signatures followed by the words “under duress,” “Sovereign Living Soul” (SLS), or a copyright symbol (©)

Personal seals, stamps, or thumb prints in red ink The words “accepted for value”9

They also carry fraudulent drivers’ licenses to indicate their view

that law enforcement does not have the authority to stop their

vehicle or may write “No Liability Accepted” above their

signature on a driver’s license to signify that they do not accept it as a legitimate identification

It is important

to realize sovereign

citizens’ tactics to

harass and intimidate

law enforcement,

court, and government

officials, as well as

financial institution

employees.

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document.

Intimidation, Obstruction, and Protection

It is important to realize sovereign citizens’ tactics to harass and intimidate law enforcement, court,

and government officials, as well as financial institution employees. Methods can range from

refusing to cooperate with requests, demanding an oath of office or proof of jurisdiction, filming

interactions with law enforcement that they later post on the Internet, and filing frivolous lawsuits

or liens against real property. They convene their own special courts that issue fake but realistic-

looking indictments, warrants, and other documents. They also can use real government documents,

including suspicious activity reports, in an attempt to damage the credit or financial history of

specific individuals.

While these efforts may seem obviously fraudulent, it is important to address these actions, which

can have devastating outcomes for the individuals they target. The sovereign citizens’ efforts also

can be a gateway for them to harass, terrorize, and target others in hopes of changing behaviors that

they perceive as threatening.

The Court Security Improvement Act of 2007 is one protection for officials who the sovereign

citizens could target. The provisions under Title 18 created a new criminal offense for false liens

against the real or personal property of officers or federal government employees, including judges

and prosecutors. It also created as a new crime the disclosure of personal, identifying information to

intimidate or incite violence against these individuals.10

Conclusion

Although the sovereign-citizen movement does not always rise to

violence, its members’ illegal activities and past violent—

including fatal—incidents against law enforcement make it a

group that should be approached with knowledge and caution. It is

important that law enforcement be aware of sovereign citizens’

tactics so agencies can warn the public of potential scams, spot

illegal activity and understand its potential severity, and be

prepared for and protect against violent behavior or backlash

through intimidation and harassment.

Endnotes

1 U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation,

Domestic Terrorism Operations Unit and Domestic Terrorism

Analysis Unit, Sovereign Citizen Danger to Law Enforcement

(Washington, DC, 2010).

2 U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation,

Domestic Terrorism Operations Unit II, Sovereign Citizens: An

Although the

sovereign-citizen

movement does not

always rise to violence,

its members’…

activities…make it

a group that should

be approached with

knowledge and

caution.

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Introduction for Law Enforcement (Washington, DC, 2010).

3 U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Domestic

Terrorism Analysis Unit, Sovereign Citizen Extremist Movement (Washington, DC, 2011).

4 U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of California, “Two ‘Sovereign Citizens’ Sentenced in

Illegal Insurance Scam,” press release, 2/24/2010;

http://sacramento.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel10/sc022410.htm (accessed June 14, 2011).

5 U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of Missouri, “Three Men Sentenced for Conspiracy to

Use Fake Diplomatic Identification,” press release, 2/8/2010;

http://kansascity.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel10/kc020810.htm (accessed June 14, 2011).

6 U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney, District of Nevada, “Members of Anti-Government

Movement Arrested on Federal Money Laundering, Tax Evasion and Weapons Charges,” press

release, 3/6/2009; http://www.justice.gov/usao/nv/press/march2009/davis030609.htm (accessed

June 14, 2011).

7 U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Attorney’s Office-District of New Hampshire, press releases,

1/18/2007 and 7/9/2009, “Jury Convicts Lebanon Dentist and Husband in Tax Case,” and “Edward

and Elaine Brown Convicted”; http://www.justice.gov/tax/usaopress/2007/txdv07WEM_Browns.pdf

and http://www.atf.gov/press/releases/2009/07/070909-bos-edward-and-elaine-brown-

convicted.html (accessed June 14, 2011).

8 The authors wish to stress that the majority of individuals who carry or refer to these resources are

law-abiding citizens. However, in some instances, possession of these items may serve as one

indicator of a sovereign-citizen extremist.

9Sovereign Citizens: An Introduction for Law Enforcement.

10 Court Security Improvement Act of 2007; http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-

110publ177/pdf/PLAW-110publ177.pdf (accessed June 14, 2011).

Mr. Hunter is an intelligence analyst in the FBI’s Counterterrorism Analysis Section.

Dr. Heinke is the counterterrorism coordinator for the State Ministry of the Interior in Bremen,

Germany.

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Little Shell Pembina Band

Law enforcement officers and public officials around the country are encountering members of a

new and active anti-government extremist group that calls itself the "Little Shell Pembina Band of

North America." Members of the group claim that they belong to a "sovereign" Native American

tribe and therefore are not subject to laws and regulations; in reality, the "Little Shell Pembina

Band" is part of the anti-government "sovereign citizen" movement. Its members' activities range

from driving with bogus license plates to perpetrating insurance fraud schemes to tax evasion.

Origins

Members

Activities and

Tactics

Updates

Founder: Ronald Delorme

Based: Primarily in North Dakota and Washington, but

members can be found across the nation.

Splinter Group: The group has split into two competing

factions, each using the same name.

Media: Internet, videos, seminars, fax solicitations

Approach: Claims to be a sovereign Native American tribe

and not subject to the laws of the United States.

Ideology: Anti-government and sovereign citizen; members

may also belong to a wide variety of sovereign citizen, militia,

or white supremacist groups.

Origins

The origins of the Little Shell Band (named after a Chief Little

Shell, who died in 1901) have a kernel of truth. The Little Shell

Band did, in fact, once exist as a branch of the Chippewa on the

northern Great Plains in the 19th century. Most were pushed

westward out of Minnesota and North Dakota to Montana. Today

there is a Little Shell Band of Montana, a legitimate although

federally unrecognized Native American tribe. It has no

connections to extremism or to the Little Shell Pembina Band of

North America. (Pembina refers to the area around the Pembina

River in northeastern North Dakota).

In the 20th century, a variety of Chippewa factions launched lawsuits for federal recognition and

funds. In these competing suits, one group identified itself as the "Little Shell of North Dakota"

but never achieved recognition.

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In 2001, a North Dakota resident named Ronald Karyance Delorme, claiming to be the hereditary

chief of the "Little Shell Band of Indians of North America," filed a federal lawsuit that sought

recognition as well as funds from appropriations statutes pertaining to Chippewa land claims.

According to the legal argument prepared by Delorme's attorney, the funds (including interest)

amounted to more than a hundred million dollars.

Describing himself as the great-grandson of Auguhk Qway, one of Chief Little Shell's Grand

Council members, Delorme had fought with other Chippewa groups over these claims for years

(despite a 1993 Native American newspaper report that his Little Shell Band consisted primarily

of his family). Ultimately, the courts saw little merit in Delorme's arguments and refused to

acknowledge a connection between his group and the Chippewas who had previously fought for

recognition.

At some point during these unsuccessful legal battles, Delorme transformed the Little Shell Band

into a sovereign citizen group. Its ideology was not new to the region: sovereign citizens had

been active in North Dakota, where Delorme and his extended family lived, dating back to the

1980s, when Posse Comitatus leader Gordon Kahl ambushed and killed two federal marshals in

Medina in 1983.

By 2004 the Little Shell Band claimed to be a "completely sovereign tribe" that held "allodial title"

to over 53 million acres of land (for some reason, this figure was later increased to 62 million).

Saying it no longer sought federal recognition, the group declared its own executive, legislative

and judicial powers, bestowing on itself the right to establish a legal bar and "tribal lawyers" as

well as a "sovereign tribal financial and banking institution."

Land claimed by the Little Shell Pembina Band. Includes most of North Dakota and parts of Montana,

South Dakota and Manitoba.

Perhaps most importantly, the "new" version of the Little Shell Band allowed anyone, regardless

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of ancestry, to become a member of the group, opening the door for a variety of anti-government

figures to join (for a fee) and claim membership in the "sovereign" Little Shell Band. As a result,

Little Shell Band activity spread around the country.

Members

The Little Shell Band has more than 60 documented members, with probably at least a hundred

more not yet identified. People have joined from around the country, with larger numbers in North

Dakota, the Pacific Northwest and Southern California. The members are an eclectic and

unusual collection of anti-government activists, including:

The Delorme family. Ronald Delorme and his family began the Little Shell Band and

continue to play an extremely important role. Among the family members identified with the group are Dallas Delorme (Grand Council member), Leo Delorme (Grand Council Chairman), Glen Delorme (Grand Council member), Keith Delorme (Administrative Officer) and Vincent Delorme (Grand Council). The family is not unified, however. In April 2004, Ronald Delorme and Leo Delorme mutually expelled each other, as well as various followers, thereby creating separate factions of the group, each with its own Web page and each claiming to be the "real" Little Shell Band.

Ronald Brakke (Tribal Spokesman). Brakke is a long-time sovereign citizen activist

from North Dakota. According to a colleague, he is an "expert on banking, credit, mortgage and entitlement." During the 1980s, Brakke, once a farmer, was involved with Posse Comitatus-style groups that promoted fictitious financial instruments, bogus trusts and similar schemes. In 1991, he was convicted for theft after harvesting crops on property owned by a bank.

William McNamara (Director of Public Relations). One of the more unusual characters

in the Little Shell saga, William McNamara is a Hollywood television and film actor who has played in films alongside well-known stars ranging from Bette Midler to Jeff Bridges to Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter. McNamara is also a dedicated sovereign citizen, involved with the Law Research Group and tied to other anti-government organizations such as the Erwin Rommel School of Law. Along with Brakke, Leo Delorme, and Navin Naidu (see below), he has offered seminars in Hollywood about the Little Shell Band, which purport to explain how "members of the band can use a quit claim to offset potential foreclosure." In an e-mail to ADL, McNamara asserted that he had cut off relations with Ronald Delorme and Navin Naidu.

Navin Naidu (Circuit Court Judge and Finance/Economic Advisor). Naidu is perhaps

the strangest Little Shell character of all. He first achieved notoriety when he appeared in Fiji in 2001 as the lawyer for George Speight, a former insurance salesman who had spearheaded an unsuccessful coup d'etat and was subsequently charged with treason. When the Fiji government checked Naidu's qualifications, it discovered that his University of London law certificate was spurious, as was his claim to be practicing at the "International Ecclesiastical Law Offices" in Seattle, which turned out to be non-existent. Naidu, a Singapore-born ethnic East Indian and U.S. resident, admitted that he had no license to practice law in the U.S. but that his credentials came from "Jesus." Naidu was arrested and later deported. Back in the United States, Naidu moved to Kent, Washington, where he identified himself as an "ecclesiastical lawyer" and began devising plans to create a church court that could marry or divorce people and even decide criminal cases.

John Lloyd Kirk (Clerk; Tribal Lawyer). A Tukwila, Washington, sovereign citizen and

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anti-Semite and a friend of Montana Freeman Leroy Schweitzer, Kirk was one of a group of seven Washington sovereign citizens and militia members arrested in 1997 on a variety of weapons and explosives charges. Convicted of possession of a pipe bomb and conspiracy to possess and make destructive devices, Kirk received a 46-month prison sentence. It was not his first conviction: in 1980, according to author Jane Kramer, he had been found guilty of statutory rape in an incident involving his daughters.

Kenneth "Keny" Wayne Leaming (Tribal Prosecuting Attorney). Leaming, a self-

described "recognized international lawyer" and "Attorney in Fact" is a Spanaway, Washington-based former deputy sheriff and member of the Civil Rights Task Force, a sovereign citizen group that has used badges and raid jackets to resemble law enforcement officers. His CRTF partner, David Carroll Stephenson, was ordered by a federal court in March 2004 to stop promoting an alleged tax scam that allowed people to avoid an estimated $43 million in federal income taxes.

Allen "White Eagle Soaring" Heart. The entrepreneurial Heart and his partner Kay

Ekwall operate the Seventh Fire Web site, where they market a wide variety of items, including "authentic Ojibwe dream catchers," alternative health products and bogus mortgage elimination schemes. The site also provides a variety of Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic essays, such as "How Thieves Corrupted the Bible by Adding the Zionist State of Israel for Christians to Worship."

Other identified members of the Little Shell Band include many who are involved in different

extreme right-wing movements.

Activities and Tactics

Since the Little Shell Band started operating as a sovereign citizen group, its members have

sought to use its self-declared, fictitious sovereignty to their advantage. These activities have

included:

Offering bogus insurance. One of the earliest activities of the Little Shell Band was to

offer insurance under the guise of the "Little Shell Pembina Band of North America Assurance Company" (and other names). Despite lacking licenses and certificates of authority, the Little Shell Band offered applications for auto and homeowners "assurance" that would replace existing insurance policies, according to North Dakota officials, who issued a cease and desist order against Ronald Delorme and others in 2003. In June 2003, the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation ordered the First Actual American Insurance Company, Ronald Delorme and Zachary Betts of California to stop marketing malpractice insurance. According to Florida regulators, the company claimed it had authority through the Little Shell Band and was faxing sales materials to doctors throughout Florida. Similar cease and desist orders soon followed from Missouri, Oregon, Ohio, New York, Washington and Georgia, naming Delorme, the First Actual American Insurance

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Company and a variety of other individuals. In July 2004, Leo Delorme ordered the expulsion of Ronald Delorme and various other members for allegedly "preparing and carrying out a liability insurance scheme for the purpose of defrauding doctors."

Evading taxes. In May 2004, Donald Donovan of Seaford, Delaware, was sentenced to

three years in prison and fined following a four-count conviction on tax evasion charges. Donavan, who failed to pay almost $100,000 in federal income taxes over several years, claimed, among other things, that because he was a member of the Little Shell band, he should be exempted from paying taxes. Other Little Shell members made similar claims. In June 2004, the IRS sent Ronald Delorme a letter complaining that Little Shell Band identification cards described holders as exempt from federal income taxes. Delorme maintained that the issuers of the cards had been expelled from the Little Shell Band (according to a notice on Delorme's Web site, those involved were Ronald Brakke, William McNamara, Randy Peterson, and John Sheridan). On one online forum, a Little Shell member claimed in July 2004 that he showed his new employers such a card and they stopped withholding taxes on his salary; he also claimed to use it to avoid paying sales tax at stores like Wal-Mart.

Avoiding regulations. Some Little Shell Band members have tried to use the

ostensible sovereignty of the group to avoid regulations or court orders. For example, Davenport, Iowa, officials issued citations ordering Larry Allen Bell and Martha June Puls to clean up their property, which was littered with debris ranging from old vehicles to piles of dirt and rocks. Bell and Puls filed suit in federal court in 2003, claiming that their property was "Indian treaty land" under the "sovereign national jurisdiction" of the Little Shell Band because Bell had allegedly deeded his property to the Little Shell Band in 2002. The suit was dismissed.

Using bogus license plates and driving documents.

Little Shell license plates have been spotted around the country by law enforcement officials. In July 2003, for example, five residents of Barnes County, North Dakota, were arrested after being caught with fake drivers licenses, registrations and insurance cards issued by the Little Shell Band. The license plates look realistic and may easily be confused with legitimate tribal license plates.

Delaying court cases and thwarting foreclosures. Little Shell members commonly try

to avoid the consequences of lawsuits or prosecutions by claiming that the courts lack jurisdiction over them or by transferring contested items, such as property, to the Little Shell Band. Krystina Diane Coffman of Cincinnati, Ohio, attempted to use this tactic after the Toyota Corporation sued her when she stopped making payments on her 2003 Lexus. Coffman claimed that she had paid Toyota, even though she only made seven payments, because she sent them a "promissory note" for the remainder. In court, she initially refused to answer questions about the car, but finally admitted that she "sold" it to the Little Shell Band for "one piece of silver." She also filed documents demanding that the case be removed from the federal court and transferred to the "Federal Tribal Circuit Court" of the Pembina Nation Little Shell Band. In late December 2004, she neglected to appear for the final ruling, prompting the judge to order police to bring her to court when found. Similarly, North Dakota residents Virgil Rott, Shirley Rott and Dwight Rott brought suit in 2004 against the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, which years earlier had foreclosed on their property. As part of their argument, the Rotts filed documentation with the court stating that they had deeded their interest in the property to the Little Shell Band. Precisely what effect they thought this might have is unclear, but their suit was unsuccessful.