UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff - Appellee, 

v. 

PAUL ERNEST SELLORS, 

 Defendant - Appellant. 

No. 13-1470 

(D.C. No. 1:13-CR-00140-CMA-2) 

(D. Colo.)

 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

 

Before MATHESON, PORFILIO, and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judges. 

 

 Paul Ernest Sellors, proceeding pro se, appeals from his four-count conviction 

under 18 U.S.C. § 505, which prohibits forging or counterfeiting the seal of a court of 

the United States or knowingly concurring in using any such forged or counterfeit 

seal. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm. 

 

* After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined 

unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination of this 

appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore 

ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding 

precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, claim preclusion, and issue 

preclusion. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with 

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

July 22, 2014

Elisabeth A. Shumaker 

Clerk of Court
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Background

 Sellors was formerly a member of the Republic for the united States of 

America (RuSA), a group that created its own government, including its own courts. 

He testified that the RuSA community appointed him to be a judge. In this capacity, 

as “Judge Paul Ernest Sellors, District Court Justice,” he signed four documents 

purporting to be orders of the “United States of America District Court, District of 

Minnesota.” R. Supp. Vol. 1 at 2-3, 11, 15, 20-21. These documents were issued in 

apparent anticipation of a trial of some kind. The named plaintiff was Ronald Roy 

Hoodenpyle, who had been convicted of filing a false lien against a revenue officer 

some two years earlier in Colorado. Hoodenpyle had recently violated the terms of 

his supervised release. 

 The documents were formatted to resemble federal-district-court orders and 

bore a seal in a circular shape, with “United States of America District Court” 

appearing around the top of the circle, “District of Minnesota” around the bottom, 

and “Clerk of Court” along the diameter. Id. at 3, 11, 15, 21. They were mailed or 

faxed to individuals and entities, all in Colorado, who had been involved with 

Hoodenpyle’s prosecution. 
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 Sellors was indicted in Colorado with four counts (one for each seal) of 

violating 18 U.S.C. § 505.1

 This statute provides in relevant part: “Whoever . . . 

forges or counterfeits the seal of any [court of the United States], or knowingly 

concurs in using any such forged or counterfeit . . . seal, for the purpose of 

authenticating any proceeding or document . . . knowing such . . . seal to be false or 

counterfeit, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or 

both.” 

The district court appointed counsel to represent Sellors, but he rejected that 

appointment as well as the appointment of advisory stand-by counsel. During his 

defense, Sellors admitted that he held himself out as an Article III Judge when he 

signed the documents at issue but that the court in which he was being tried (the 

Federal District Court for the District of Colorado) was in fact a legitimate Article III 

Court. He also admitted that he signed his name next to the District-of-Minnesota 

seal, that he participated or concurred in sending off the documents, and that he 

wanted people who received the documents to get notice of upcoming judicial 

proceedings. R. Vol. 4 at 102. Notwithstanding this testimony, Sellors asserted that 

he neither intended to defraud nor pretended to be a district court judge. Rather, he 

testified that his intent was “to invite folks to settle their disputes in our forum, The 

People’s Court.” Id. 

 

1

 Hoodenpyle was identically charged under the same indictment. He entered 

into a plea agreement with the government and received a sentence of two months in 

prison—to be served consecutive to preexisting criminal sentences. 
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The jury convicted Sellors of all four counts, and the district court denied his 

post-verdict Fed. R. Crim. P. 29(c) motion for acquittal. He was sentenced to 

eighteen months of imprisonment on each count, to be served concurrently. He now 

appeals from his convictions. 

Analysis 

 Liberally construing Sellors’ pro se opening brief, see United States v. Davis, 

339 F.3d 1223, 1225 (10th Cir. 2003), we identify the following arguments: (1) lack 

of jurisdiction; (2) improper venue; (3) invalid indictment; (4) insufficiency of the 

evidence; (5) violation of his First Amendment rights; (6) inadequate waiver of 

counsel; (7) error in allowing the government to introduce evidence concerning the 

“sovereign citizen” movement; and (8) invalid jury selection and composition. Any 

other arguments that Sellors may have intended to bring on appeal are inadequately 

briefed and deemed waived. See Garrett v. Selby Connor Maddux & Janer, 425 F.3d 

836, 841 (10th Cir. 2005) (stating that Fed. R. App. P. 28 “applies equally to pro se 

litigants” and requires more than “mere conclusory allegations with no citations to 

the record or any legal authority for support”); Adler v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 

144 F.3d 664, 679 (10th Cir. 1998) (holding that arguments inadequately presented in 

the opening brief are waived). 

I. Arguments Not Preserved in the District Court 

 With only a few exceptions, Sellors has failed to identify where in the record 

he raised the issues he brings up on appeal, as required by 10th Cir. R. 28.2(C)(2). It 
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is not this court’s task to comb through the record to determine whether he preserved 

his arguments for appeal. Thus, except where our review of the appellate record has 

shown otherwise, we assume that his arguments were not preserved. See United 

States v. Barber, 39 F.3d 285, 287 (10th Cir. 1994). At best, any unpreserved 

arguments were forfeited and are reviewable on appeal only for plain error. See Fed. 

R. Crim. P. 52(b); United States v. Lamirand, 669 F.3d 1091, 1100 n.7 (10th Cir. 

2012); Richison v. Ernest Grp., Inc., 634 F.3d 1123, 1127-30 (10th Cir. 2011). But 

Sellors does not argue for plain-error review, and “the failure to argue for plain error 

and its application on appeal [] surely marks the end of the road for an argument for 

reversal not first presented to the district court.” Richison, 634 F.3d at 1131. 

 Accordingly, we deem the following arguments to have been forfeited on 

appeal, and we do not further consider them: (1) that venue was improper because 

(a) his actions took place in Minnesota, not in Colorado, and (b) he “was not judged 

by his peers, but by citizens of the United States not of the Minnesota 

vicinage/community,” Aplt. Br. at 33; (2) that the indictment was invalid because 

(a) “the people who acted as ‘grand jurors’ for the USA Agents also acted as USA 

Officers due to their ‘oaths of office,’” and therefore he “was indicted by USA 

Officers, not by people of the states united,” id. at 6-7, (b) the grand jurors were not 

of his “state or of the Minnesota state body politic,” id. at 7, and (c) he was not given 

the opportunity to make a presentment to the grand jury; (3) that the evidence was 

insufficient as to (a) his status as a “Whoever,” id. at 14, (b) the use of the seal to 
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authenticate a document, and (c) his involvement with or knowledge of the creation 

or use of the seal; (4) that he was prosecuted in violation of his First Amendment 

rights; (5) that the prosecution was required to establish intent as an element; and 

(6) that the jury composition and/or selection was unconstitutional. 

II. Subject-Matter Jurisdiction 

 Arguments regarding subject-matter jurisdiction are not forfeitable or 

waivable. United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625, 630 (2002). Accordingly, we 

address those arguments we construe as jurisdictional here—namely, that the district 

court lacked jurisdiction because: (1) Sellors’ “commercial/personhood status” was 

not disclosed to him, Aplt. Br. at 4, but “a status/personhood must be known and be a 

target of the Act in order for the USA Agents to be able to exercise their 

Constitutional power,” id. at 2; (2) “Plaintiffs’ authority source was not disclosed,” 

id. at 3; (3) the United States could not bring this action because it “must be a 

corporation” and therefore it is “property,” with “no standing in a Federal Court 

against one of the people,” id. at 3-4; and (4) “this action was at best a copyright 

infringement” and “was never a criminal issue,” id. at 3. 

These arguments are patently frivolous. The district court had jurisdiction to 

try Sellors for violating 18 U.S.C. § 505, a criminal statute of the United States. See

18 U.S.C. § 3231 (“The district courts of the United States shall have original 

jurisdiction, exclusive of the courts of the States, of all offenses against the laws of 

the United States.”); see also United States v. Benabe, 654 F.3d 753, 767 (7th Cir. 
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2011) (“Regardless of an individual’s claimed status of descent, be it as a ‘sovereign 

citizen,’ a ‘secured-party creditor,’ or a ‘flesh-and-blood human being,’ that person is 

not beyond the jurisdiction of the courts. These theories should be rejected 

summarily, however they are presented.”); Lonsdale v. United States, 919 F.2d 1440, 

1448 (10th Cir. 1990) (rejecting similar arguments in the tax-protestor context). 

III. Indictment 

Apparently challenging the sufficiency of the indictment, Sellors argues that 

“not one of the ‘Counts’ contains a charge for a Jury to determine guilt,” Aplt. Br. at 

6. A similar argument appeared in his Rule 29(c) motion: “[e]ach count which was 

submitted to the jury was in fact an exhibit and not an allegation as outlined in the 

Glossary meaning of Count.” R. Vol. 1 at 340. It is not clear whether he challenged 

the indictment before filing the Rule 29(c) motion, and a challenge’s timing may 

affect the standard of review. See United States v. Doe, 572 F.3d 1162, 1173 & n.9 

(10th Cir. 2009) (“While a timely-raised objection to the sufficiency of the 

information merits de novo review, courts are less hospitable to challenges to an 

information later in the proceedings.” (brackets and internal quotation marks 

omitted)). But we need not resolve this issue because the result does not turn on the 

standard of review. 

 “An indictment, or information, is sufficient if it contains the elements of the 

offense charged, putting the defendant on fair notice of the charge against which he 

must defend, and if it enables a defendant to assert a double jeopardy defense.” Id. at 
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1173 (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted). Here the indictment tracked 

the language of § 505, setting forth the specific provisions that Sellors allegedly 

violated. It listed the four documents containing the seal in a table correlating each 

document with a particular count. Sellors does not coherently explain how it was 

improper for the indictment to take this form; the fact that the documents listed in the 

table later were introduced into evidence does not invalidate the indictment. 

IV. Sufficiency of the Evidence

 In his Rule 29(c) motion, Sellors challenged the sufficiency of the evidence on 

the grounds that “[t]he issue of the counterfeit seal was never established or proven” 

and “[n]ot one of the witnesses presented by the prosecution was able to testify as to 

any evidence of counterfeit.” R. Vol. 1 at 341. Accordingly, he has preserved these 

specific arguments for appeal. See United States v. Goode, 483 F.3d 676, 681 

(10th Cir. 2007) (“When a defendant challenges in district court the sufficiency of the 

evidence on specific grounds, all grounds not specified in the motion are waived,” 

although “it is more precisely termed a forfeiture when there is no suggestion of a 

knowing, voluntary failure to raise the matter.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). 

We review the sufficiency of the evidence de novo to determine “whether, after 

viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier 

of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable 

doubt.” United States v. Serrato, 742 F.3d 461, 472 (10th Cir.) (internal quotation 

marks omitted), cert. denied, 134 S. Ct. 2739 (2014). 
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 Viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, there was ample 

evidence for the jury to conclude that the seals were forged or counterfeit seals of a 

United States court. The testimony showed that Sellors is not a federal judge and 

that the documents bearing the seals were not orders of the federal district court in 

Minnesota. An employee of the clerk’s office for the federal district court in 

Minnesota testified that the seal “appear[ed] to be a seal from the District of 

Minnesota,” but that it was not a genuine seal. R. Supp. Vol. 1 at 154. Recipients of 

the documents testified that they noticed the seal and that it played a role in their 

initial misconceptions that the documents were communications from the federal 

district court in Minnesota. During cross-examination of one of the recipients—an 

assistant United States district attorney—Sellors elicited testimony that the seals on 

the two documents he received were indeed counterfeit. Other witnesses testified 

about similarities between the seals on the documents and the seals of federal district 

courts. 

What’s more, a federal agent who interviewed Sellors testified that during the 

interview, he pointed out the seal and other features of the documents that made them 

seem like they came from the federal district court, not the RuSA. According to the 

agent, Sellors “said he understood that. He understood where there could be 

confusion and it looked a lot like actual official United States government 

documents.” Id. at 134-35. 
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V. Introduction of Evidence 

 Sellors asserts that the district court erred in allowing the government to 

introduce testimony about the term “sovereign citizen” over his objections. Our 

review is for abuse of discretion, and “[u]nder that standard, we will not disturb an 

evidentiary ruling absent a distinct showing that it was based on a clearly erroneous 

finding of fact or an erroneous conclusion of law or manifests a clear error in 

judgment.” United States v. Hillman, 642 F.3d 929, 938 (10th Cir. 2011). 

 The district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing witnesses to testify 

about their understanding of the “sovereign citizen” movement and its connection to 

the RuSA. The testimony may have aided the jury in understanding the facts and 

circumstances of this case. To the extent that Sellors believes the testimony was 

inaccurate or painted him, a former member of the RuSA, in a false light, he had the 

opportunity to cross-examine the government’s witnesses and to call his own 

witnesses. And he testified on his own behalf, explaining his understanding of the 

term “sovereign citizen” and why he considers it to be an oxymoron. 

VI. Waiver of Counsel 

Finally, Sellors asserts that he could not validly waive his right to counsel 

without being informed of his “presumed/assumed personhood or standing by the 

Prosecutor and the Court.” Aplt. Br. at 28. He states that “[w]ithholding this crucial 

information is pivotal in the acquiring of counsel and comprehending a defendant’s 

role in a trial,” and because his “status/standing” was not disclosed, his waiver of 
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counsel did not comply with Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 835 (1975). Aplt. 

Br. at 28. Like his jurisdictional arguments regarding personhood and status, this 

argument is frivolous. To the extent that it can be construed as a challenge to the 

adequacy of the district court’s inquiries regarding his waiver, see Faretta, 422 U.S. 

at 835 (requiring the district court to make the defendant “aware of the dangers and 

disadvantages of self-representation”), the record shows that two magistrate judges 

engaged in colloquies with Sellors, repeatedly urging him to accept counsel and 

attempting thorough inquiries to ensure that his waiver of counsel was knowing and 

intelligent. He was advised of the charges against him and the maximum penalties, 

and the magistrate judges discussed various disadvantages of proceeding without 

counsel. The court’s handling of Sellors’ requests to proceed pro se satisfied Faretta. 

See United States v. Turner, 287 F.3d 980, 983-84 (10th Cir. 2002). 

Conclusion 

 The judgment of the district court is affirmed. 

 Entered for the Court 

 Per Curiam