A Sovereign Citizen in Philipstown

Extremist views central to Route 9 case
Derek Keith Williams began his paper assault on the Putnam County Clerk's Office with 118 pages of mostly indecipherable legalese filed in March 2020.
By the time of his last filing this past September — a six-page "notice to vacate unlawful warrant" addressed to the Town of Carmel's police chief — the self-proclaimed "sovereign citizen" had spent more than $5,000 on nearly 30 filings with the clerk. Many of them were fruitless attempts to prevent M&T Bank from evicting Sokhara Kim and Chakra Oeur from their business and home at 3154 Route 9.

The serial filings are a hallmark of sovereign citizens, a fringe movement started by white supremacists but with Black adherents like Williams, who is accused of causing the Cambodian couple to lose the property to foreclosure. Its members broadly believe they are exempt from laws and reject documents such as Social Security cards and driver's licenses, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group that tracks extremists.
The SPLC documented 93 sovereign citizen groups nationwide in 2024, including three in New York state: the Life Force Network, the National Liberty Alliance based in Hyde Park and Punished for Protecting. "More women, younger people and more economically well-off folks disenchanted with their lives under the U.S. government" are joining, according to the SPLC.
This month, SPLC's monthly Intelligence Project Dispatch noted Williams' sentencing in December to six months in the Putnam County jail after being convicted on a misdemeanor charge of aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle for driving without plates, insurance, registration or a license. Along with a mention of broadcaster Alex Jones, it was highlighted as an example of "conspiracy propagandists."
Court Case to Resume in March
Sokhara Kim and Chakra Oeur's effort to reclaim 3154 Route 9 is scheduled to continue March 18 with an appearance before state Judge Gina Capone, who presided over the foreclosure of the Philipstown property.
A hearing set for Jan. 15 was postponed because the court could not find an interpreter for the couple, who are natives of Cambodia. On Jan. 2, Capone temporarily restrained M&T Bank from transferring the deed.
Kim and Oeur hope to convince the judge that Derek Keith Williams is responsible for the foreclosure. According to their attorney, Jacob Chen, the loss of the property is a "deeply tragic — and profoundly avoidable — result" of the actions of "an unhinged and dangerous criminal who exercised coercive control over them."
A few people who claim to be sovereign citizens have been involved in violent crimes, such as a 2024 shooting in which Corey Cobb-Bey, a "Moorish American National," killed a Dallas police officer. But they are more commonly known for non-violent efforts to evade taxes, squat on properties and carry out "illegal housing-related, money-making schemes," according to the SPLC.
One of the standard tactics is "paper terrorism" — bombarding clerks' offices and courts with phony and often indecipherable filings that can exceed 100 pages and are filled with grandiose language, references to treaties and patents and widespread use of capital letters and the copyright and trademark symbols. According to the SPLC, "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."
In January 2025, in Putnam, Williams filed a "notice of unlawful eviction" and "notice of fraudulent deed" claiming that M&T had foreclosed on land that an entity he created, DKW Trust, "secured by a land patent." Documents filed the next month declared Williams "a sovereign citizen of the United States of America" who is protected from "undue government interference" by the Constitution.

Putnam County, he claimed, "has no constitutional authority to enter, search or seize" 3154 Route 9, the longtime home of Kim's business, Nice...