Sovereign citizens believe they are not under the jurisdiction of the federal government and consider themselves exempt from U.S. law. They use a variety of conspiracy theories and falsehoods to justify their beliefs and their activities, some of which are illegal or violent. Their rejection of legal documentation such as Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses, vehicle registration and other forms of government identification lead to frequent interactions with law enforcement.
Top Takeaways
In 2024, sovereign citizen activities fell into four categories. The first category of activity was perpetrating violence. Sovereigns committed a sizeable number of violent incidents, primarily against members of law enforcement. These were individual cases where the sovereign citizen did not possess known ties to an organized group. Six sovereign citizens attempted violence against personnel from sheriff departments, city police forces, or state law agencies. These incidents resulted in one officer killed and three officers hospitalized with gunshot wounds, while four more sustained injuries. None of the sovereign citizens survived these encounters.
The second category of activity was crimes committed by sovereign citizens that did not end violently or have a violent component to them. These typically included possession of weapons, possession of explosives, resisting arrest, and financial crimes.
The third category of activities was the merger of sovereign citizen and non-sovereign citizen extremists in activities and events that furthered sovereign citizen agendas, and, in at least one case, involved the harassment of public officials.
The fourth area of activity was the creation and growth of sovereign shadow governments, called assemblies, whose formation is based on both historical U.S. law and made-up arbitrary rules. Sovereigns develop these with the goal of replacing the United States government in the future. They typically involve the formation of various “government agencies.” These include, but are not limited to, militaries, postal unions, motor vehicle departments, law enforcement, and courts with grand juries based around old English common law. While sovereigns continued to build their assemblies in 2024, they used their grand juries to try U.S. citizens for real and imagined crimes, although they have no authority to do so. These “crimes” can carry sentences “up to and including death.”
Key Moments
Violence Perpetrated by Sovereign Citizens
In Harris County, Texas, in mid-April, self-identified sovereign Patrick Hurst took sheriff deputies on a car chase after he was stopped for a broken taillight and expired tags. Hurst also had a felony warrant for previously evading police. Deputies were able to stop Hurst’s car, but he exited his vehicle and began shooting. Deputies killed Hurst in an ensuing gunfight that left one bystander injured.
In Florida, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office attempted to serve a warrant to veteran and sovereign citizen Joseph Ogle in May. Law enforcement said he was a veteran known to have training in minor explosives and be in possession of numerous rifles and handguns. Ogle had also fortified his home. Ogle was shot after firing his weapon at law enforcement from his home and presenting himself while armed. And in Palm Bay, Florida, in late June, John Jay Niebuhr, a sovereign known by law enforcement, was shot and killed after trying to enter the Melbourne Orlando International Airport through a secure gate while armed.
In early August in Colfax County, New Mexico, Tyrel Richter Cutchie ran a Springer Electric Company vehicle off the road and brandished a gun at its occupants, before taking police on a car chase. Two law enforcement officers were injured as a result of the chase, and Cutchie was killed at the scene. Cutchie’s sovereign associations were documented in his online social media footprint on Facebook.
Two Moorish sovereign citizens also gunned down members of law enforcement in unrelated incidents. In Florida in April, sovereign Kyran Caples (aka Kmac El Bey) was approached by local sheriff deputies about trespassing at a park after hours. Caples shot two deputies, and Caples was shot dead at the scene. In August in Dallas, Texas, amateur rapper and truck driver Corey Cobb-Bey (aka Coremour Luel Bey) approached police, killing one officer and injuring two others. Cobb-Bey was shot and killed while brandishing a long gun and approaching additional officers. Caples’ obituary and Cobb-Bey’s Instagram profile both described the men as “Tru Moors.”
Nonviolent Crimes
In 2024 sovereign citizens were investigated, charged or sentenced for nonviolent crimes, some of which may have turned violent without the intervention of law enforcement.
In March, sovereign Curtis Gregory Smith Jr. of Middletown, Pennsylvania, was convicted and sentenced to up to 56 years in prison for being a felon in possession of a half-dozen firearms, body armor, and thousands of rounds of ammunition, some of it categorized as “NATO grade” and meant for war zones.
Traffic stops were also challenging for law enforcement, especially those involving sovereigns with weapons or resisting arrest. This included the arrest of sovereign Wayne R. Lund after a traffic stop in Oak Park Heights, Minnesota. Police found Lund had no driver’s license or insurance, but what Lund did possess were pipe bombs, which he later claimed were used for his “rocket hobby.” He faces felony charges of possession of an explosive/incendiary device, charges of fifth-degree drug possession, and driving an uninsured vehicle.
In Athens, Georgia, in mid-August, a sovereign was using a nonlegitimate license plate containing the words “Private, Not for Commerce.” The driver’s vehicle registration was suspended and, when the officer asked the driver to exit the car, the man refused to comply. Police were forced to break the window to restrain the driver and take him into custody. The man claimed the officers were “kidnapping” him, which is an oft-used line by arrested sovereigns who believe they live outside the jurisdiction of police.
In late May, Judy Grace Sellers of Jacksonville, Florida, was sentenced to five years in prison for perpetuating a tax fraud scheme on her website “commercialredemption.com.” Sellers assisted in the filing of fraudulent returns. Initially arrested in 2014, Sellers cut off an ankle monitor and was on the run for eight years.
Her tax scam included her promotion of the IRS tax form 1099-OID as a tool to defraud the government. The 1099-OID scheme has been a common tactic used by sovereign citizens over the years who have bought into the conspiracy theory that each of them possesses a secret bank account funded by the government when they were born. Sovereigns advocate that the legitimate tax form gives them access to the money in the secret account. Sellers assisted with the filing of 22 forms that totaled requests for $3.4 million. Sellers also previously filed a fraudulent lien against the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida, an act known as paper terrorism, which was included in her sentencing.
Sovereign Citizens Collaborate With Other Hard-Right Extremists
Beginning in January 2024, “Take Our Border Back” (TOBB) was promoted online as a set of convoys and preplanned rallies in Arizona, California and Texas. Multiple convoy organizers, including Robert Agee and Pete Chambers, were members of the sovereign Republic of Texas. Speakers included sovereigns Ann Vandersteel and Maureen Steele. Also involved in the events as committee members, speakers or attendees were a number of conspiracy theorists, white nationalists and neo-Nazis.
After the rallies were over, Take Our Border Back became an organized group hosting further events with a long list of antigovernment extremist speakers and trainers. This included Cottonwood Militia leader Woody Clendenen, John Birch Society Field Director John Schrock, David Barton of WallBuilders and Shawn Wilson of Mayhem Solutions.
Another group formed by sovereign citizens and various ideological extremists is the North American Patriot and Liberty Militia (NAPALM), which included sovereigns Ann Vandersteel and Maureen Steele, who both spoke at the Texas TOBB rally. The group claimed NAPALM would be “focusing on potential ‘civil unrest’ around the vote.” Other leaders included Jake Lang, who was in prison at the time on charges of assaulting police with a baseball bat during the Jan. 6 insurrection, and white nationalist Stew Peters.
Ann Vandersteel and Maureen Steele, along with sovereign citizen Mikki Klann, are also the leaders of the sovereign organization People’s Operation Restoration (POR). In late February, members of the group, led by Klann, accosted the Maricopa County Supervisors during their meeting. It resulted in a new threat assessment for the supervisors and new security protocols put in place.
POR believes in the fiction that the U.S. government is a corporation, and public officials are part of that fraud. POR has created a convoluted multistep process with the goal of getting officials out of office and replacing them with sovereigns. It includes serving them with multiple documents, including a bill for the officials’ so-called “criminal” acts and a notice to the military, which the group believes will detain and try the officials in military tribunals. If the military fails, POR expects officials to be “arrested” by sovereign citizen sheriffs or the antigovernment group Tactical Civics.
Creation of Shadow Governments
Many sovereign groups were very busy creating assemblies in 2024. The largest is the American States Assembly, followed by the National Assembly and some smaller groups that split off from these major groups. Both organizations have groups across the country working intently on this goal. This is not a new undertaking, but the demographic they are reaching is. Last year the SPLC observed that more women, younger people, and more economically well-off folks disenchanted with their lives under the U.S. government were joining these groups. This trend continues, but there are more professionals joining the ranks than ever before. This has helped build these groups, brought in new ideas for expansion, and created new sources of funding. All of that guarantees that assemblies remain active, and their activities to replace the U.S. government continue to exist.
What’s Ahead
Based on the trends in 2024, it is possible sovereign violence will continue to plague communities, particularly law enforcement, in 2025.
Many sovereign citizens may also feel emboldened under the new Trump administration, as they were during his first term, due to their belief that he understood and was supportive of their plans. They were additionally able to make great gains in membership at the time due to conspiracy theories, such as QAnon, that also radicalized believers into sovereign citizenship.
Assemblies and sovereign citizenship on the whole will likely continue to grow, as a portion of the population remains disenfranchised from government. This will mean more people indoctrinated into conspiracy theories that, at best, take away their ability to effectively separate fact from fiction, and, at worst, like the sovereigns who attacked police in 2024, may end with the bloodshed of their victims or themselves.
Background
Sovereign citizens often abuse the court system with indecipherable filings. When confronted, many of them lash out, retaliating through acts of paper terrorism 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 were filmed killing two police officers with an assault rifle when they were pulled over on the interstate while traveling through West Memphis, Arkansas.
The roots of the movement are racist and antisemitic. It was founded in 1971 by William Potter Gale, a former member of the John Birch Society who formed a group of antigovernment Christian Identity adherents who mistrusted state and federal officials. They believed that non-white people were not human, and that Jewish people were engaged in a satanic plot to take over the world. They identified as “Posse Comitatus,” which is Latin for “power of the county,” and centers on the idea that county sheriffs are the highest governmental authority.
Posse Comitatus is based on the Sheriffs Act of 1887, which allowed sheriffs to form a posse to assist in hunting down and arresting criminals. Potter’s Posse believed they served under common law (laws based on their interpretation of the Bible), rather than civil law (legitimate laws formed by the American legal system).
The activities of Potter’s Posse, many of them criminal, included refusal to pay taxes, filing bogus property liens and committing violence against public officials. These actions, which were established by Gale’s group, have become customary in today’s sovereign citizens movement. What has changed as the sovereign citizens movement has evolved is the white supremacist ideology that initially dominated it. Contemporary sovereign citizens hold varying racial ideologies and include a variety of people.
The Sovereign Belief System
The contemporary sovereign belief system is based on a decades-old conspiracy theory that the American government set up by the Founding Fathers under a common-law legal system was secretly replaced. They believe that the replacement government swapped common law for admiralty law or maritime law.
Some sovereigns believe this change occurred during the Civil War, while others blame the events of 1933, when the U.S. abandoned the gold standard. Either way, sovereigns who hold this view stake their lives and livelihoods on the idea that U.S. judges and lawyers, who they believe are foreign agents, know about this hidden government takeover but argue against it. These supposed foreign agents deny the sovereigns’ legal motions and filings out of treasonous loyalty to hidden and malevolent government forces.
For those sovereigns tracing the conspiracy back to 1933, they claim it all started when the U.S. dollar was no longer backed by gold but instead by the “full faith and credit” of the federal government. They claim the government has pledged its citizenry as collateral by selling their future earning capabilities to foreign investors, effectively enslaving all Americans. This sale, sovereign citizens claim, takes place at birth with the issuance of a birth certificate and the hospital advice to apply for a Social Security Number for the baby. Sovereigns say that the government then uses that birth certificate to set up a corporate trust in the baby’s name — a secret U.S. Treasury account — that it funds with amounts ranging from $600,000 to $20 million, depending on the particular variant of the sovereign belief system.
Sovereign citizens believe that by setting up this Treasury Direct Account (TDA), every newborn’s rights are split between those held by the flesh-and-blood baby and the ones assigned to his or her corporate shell account, evidenced, they claim, by the fact that most certificates use all capital letters to spell out a baby’s name — “JOHN DOE,” for example. They falsely attribute this all-capital version to the actual name of the corporate shell identity, also called a “straw man,” while “John Doe” without all caps is the baby’s “real,” flesh-and-blood name. The bogus belief continues that, as the child grows older, most of his legal documents will utilize capital letters, which means that his state-issued driver’s license, marriage license, car registration, criminal court records, cable TV bill and correspondence from the IRS all will pertain to his corporate shell identity, not his real, sovereign identity.
To separate from their corporate shells, sovereign citizens use a series of convoluted steps, such as filing documentation with their secretary of state’s office declaring themselves sovereign, signing it with red blood or ink thumbprints, and then having their new sovereign identity published in a newspaper.
To tap into the secret treasury account that they believe exists, they file a series of complex, legal-sounding documents. For decades, sovereigns have attempted to perfect the process by packaging and promoting different combinations of forms and paperwork. The only touted success stories are from sovereigns who were in fact committing fraud against the government or private companies by creating counterfeit or fraudulent and fictitious documents. These sovereigns are often prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
There is no central leadership for the movement. Instead, there is a rotating group of nationwide figures and local leaders with individualized views on sovereign citizen ideology and techniques. Their recommendations often include tax evasion, adverse possession (squatting on a property that does not belong to them), or ignoring laws regarding driver’s licenses, vehicle registration or license plate possession. They base these activities on their belief that “free” men and women, as they call themselves, are not bound by the relevant laws. As part of their belief system, sovereigns assert they are traveling, not driving, since they are not transporting commercial goods or paying passengers. 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 choose how to act on what they have learned.
Paper Terrorism
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 sovereign arguments. For example, Donna Lee Wray — the common-law wife of Jerry Kane, who was half of a duo that was recorded killing two police officers in West Memphis, Arkansas, before he was killed by police, in 2010 — was involved in a protracted legal battle in 2010 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.
Similarly, 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 their targets until they attempt to sell or mortgage their property or take out a loan. Historically, these liens can be for millions, billions or even quadrillions of dollars. These extremists bury courts in endlessly large paper filings filled with language developed by their movement, trying to find the right combination of words, punctuation, paper, ink color and timing to get out of following the law.
Sovereign citizens have also perpetrated a number of illegal housing-related, money-making schemes, fraudulently occupying and deeding empty homes to themselves. They’ve convinced homeowners in foreclosure to transfer over their property titles to them using “quit claim deeds” by falsely claiming they can stop the foreclosures and give the property back for a fee. Foreclosures continue on those properties, and the end result is tenants still lose their homes, and they’re also out the money they paid to the sovereign citizen to prevent it from happening. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has recovered tens of millions of dollars from these sorts of sovereign citizen scammers prosecuted for their crimes.
Sovereign citizens often file fake tax forms that are designed to ruin an enemy’s credit rating and cause them to be audited by the IRS. Starting in the mid-1990s, states began to pass laws specifically aimed at these paper-terrorism tactics.
In April 2017, the state of Colorado cracked down heavily on sovereign citizen activity by charging the “Colorado Eight” with racketeering after they ran their own common-law courts targeting state and municipal court judges, prosecutors, sheriffs and other public officials. Members of the Colorado Eight were known for holding faux trials in Burns, Oregon, that put public officials on trial related to the antigovernment Bundy family’s organized occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge. Members Bruce Doucette, Stephen Nalty and Steven Byfield were sentenced to 22 to 38 years in prison.
On July 31, 2021, sovereign citizen Shawna Cox was arrested in Kane County, Utah, for failing to appear in court over traffic infractions. At her court hearing, Cox attempted to plead the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Amendments and claimed her case was currently being heard and subject to the common-law courts. Her supporters, including antigovernment activist Cliven Bundy, stood outside the courthouse protesting her arrest. At one appearance Cox accused the court, judge and Kane County officers of criminal acts, obstruction of justice, fraud and extortion. Cox was aided by the sovereign citizen group Statewide Common Law Grand Jury, who filed 24 total objections to what they called an “unlawful status hearing.”
In 2023, 25-year-old sovereign citizen Chase Allan was killed by police after he refused to comply with directions during a traffic stop in Farmington, Utah. He tried to grab his loaded gun and managed to get it out of the holster before he was shot. Allan and his parents were all members of the sovereign citizen movement and called themselves American State Nationals. His mother, Diane Allan, was stopped by law enforcement in 2022 for driving without vehicle registration or a license. She responded by filing a petition against various Davis County entities and employees, calling herself “one of the sovereign people of Utah.”
Diane was also an administrator for a social media channel related to the sovereign citizen group ASN Study Guide & University and an active member of their chats, according to Bobby Lawrence, the group’s co-leader. After Chase was killed, the group encouraged members to attend a vigil and reach out to the Farmington police department to share that Allan was an American State National and provide them with information about the “right to travel.” In July 2023, the Davis County prosecutor filed his decision not to press charges against the officers related to Chase Allan’s death.
2024 Sovereign Citizens Groups
*-Asterisk denotes headquarters.
Al Moroccan Empire at New Jersey State Republic
New Jersey
American Common Law Academy
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
American Meeting Group
Austin, Texas
American States Assembly
Bear Lake, Alaska
Arizona
California
Colorado
Atlantic Beach, Florida
Pasco County, Florida
Seminole County, Florida
Lithonia, Georgia
Stanford, Kentucky
Maine
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Clearwater, Minnesota
Las Vegas, Nevada
New Hampshire
Otero County, New Mexico
North Carolina
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Virginia
Grant County, Washington
King County, Washington
Snohomish County, Washington
Spokane County, Washington
Washington
America’s Remedy
Charlotte, North Carolina
ASN Study Guide & University (American State Nationals)
Illinois
Pennsylvania
The California Assembly
Orange County, California
Monterey County, California
Riverside County, California
Citizens of Idaho
Idaho
Colorado State Assembly
Colorado
Constitutional Law Group
San Antonio, Texas
Embassy of Heaven
Stayton, Oregon
Empire Washitaw de Dugdahmoundyah
Richwood, Louisiana
The Foundation
Walnut, California*
Freedom Bound International
Emery, South Dakota
Freedom From Government
Gabbs, Nevada
Hawaii General Jural Assembly
Hawaii*
HISAdvocates.org
Costa Mesa, California
Jural Assembly.org
Ohio
Life Force Network
California
Maryland
Missouri
New York
Pennsylvania
March to Exodus
Elkton, Maryland
Moorish Science Temple of America 1928
Lithonia, Georgia
National Assembly
Fairbanks, Alaska*
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Florida
Idaho
Illinois
Kentucky
Natural Law Hawaii
Hawaii
National Liberty Alliance
Hyde Park, New York*
Nevada County Assembly
Nevada County, California
Occupied Forces Hawaii Army
Hawaii
Ohio Jural Assembly
Ohio
Oregon Statewide Jural Assembly
Beaverton, Oregon
Peoples Operation Restoration
Colorado
Punished for Protecting
Marlboro, New York
R.V. Bey Publications
Pleasantville. New Jersey
Reign of the Heavens Society
Florida
Republic for the United States of America
Dothan, Alabama*
Fullerton, California
Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
Henrico County, Virginia
Republic of Texas
Bastrop County, Texas
Restore America.Org
California
Sarasota County, Florida
Georgia
Bastrop County, Michigan
Wildwood, Missouri
Montana
North Carolina
Washington
Wisconsin
Rise of the Moors
Pawtucket, Rhode Island
Sovereign Filing Solutions
Morrow, Georgia
Sovereignty Education and Defense Ministry
San Diego, California
Statewide Common Law Grand Jury
Arcadia, Florida
Team Law
Grand Junction, Colorado
United States of America Republic Government
Chicago, Illinois