A Palmer man whose flight certificate was revoked after a near-collision last year is facing federal charges, after prosecutors say he continued to fly and made claims that he was a sovereign citizen.
Alaska’s U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement Monday that William Marsan, 56, is accused of operating an aircraft without an airman certificate, operating an unregistered aircraft and operating an aircraft displaying a false registration mark. The case began in June of 2023, when the close call involving Marsan’s Piper Cherokee was reported to the Federal Aviation Administration.
“Marsan did not radio his intention to take off from an airport in Palmer and operated the aircraft against the flow of landing traffic, resulting in a near mid-air collision with another aircraft attempting to land,” officials said in the statement.
According to an indictment filed by prosecutors Thursday, Marsan received a second-class medical certificate from the FAA in 2019 but didn’t renew it the following year. He also canceled the Cherokee’s aircraft registration in 2022.
About a month after the June 9, 2023 near-collision at the Palmer Municipal Airport, an FAA safety inspector saw Marsan land there in the Cherokee. The inspector identified himself and asked to see Marsan’s pilot and medical certificates, as well as the plane’s registration and airworthiness certificate.
Marsan refused, prosecutors say.
He told the inspector “he was a ‘free citizen’ and did not need a pilot or medical certificate, and adding that his aircraft had been deregistered,” according to the indictment.
Sovereign citizens, who sometimes call themselves “free citizens,” are a fringe group of people who reject state and federal law, sometimes claiming to be citizens of self-defined nations. In 2012, Alaska Peacemakers Militia leader and sovereign citizen Schaeffer Cox was convicted as the ringleader of a “241” plot to kidnap or kill two Fairbanks-area federal officials for every militia member arrested or killed.
Later last summer, the indictment against Marsan said, two FAA inspectors saw his plane at the Willow Airport. They said the “N” in its painted identification number on each side was partially covered by stickers, one of which “had the appearance of a flag.”
The FAA’s investigation led it to issue an emergency revocation of Marsan’s pilot certificate in January. Marsan had 10 days to file an appeal, but did not do so.
“Nevertheless, (Marsan) has continued to operate the aircraft without registration, with an obscured identification number, and without a valid pilot certificate through the date of this indictment,” prosecutors wrote.
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Marsan was arrested Thursday and is being held at the Anchorage Correctional Complex.
In a Monday pretrial memo the prosecutor in the case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Bradley, said that Marsan has indicated he plans to represent himself without legal counsel.
Bradley also said that Marsan had made “discredited, frivolous arguments that have been rejected by the courts for decades,” including that he “is not subject to federal law or jurisdiction because he is not a ‘Citizen of the United States’ but rather an ‘American State National.’”
Bradley told the court that the prosecution isn’t opposed to Marsan being released before trial, but asked it to bar Marsan from flying unlicensed or flying any unregistered aircraft.
Marsan faces a maximum of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count in the case.
Prosecutors are also seeking the forfeiture of his plane if he is convicted.
Chris Klint is a web producer and breaking news reporter at Alaska Public Media. Reach him at cklint@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Chris here.
