SIOUX CITY -- Political views some may consider extreme didn't make any difference in sentencing Darrell Sorey to prison for making and possessing homemade bombs, a judge said Wednesday.
The only thing that mattered was that Sorey had broken the law, Chief U.S. District Judge Leonard Strand said.
Sorey
"He's free to have his sovereign citizen views, but he's not free to break the law," Strand said before sentencing Sorey to five years in prison.
Sorey's attorney had referenced his client's political views possibly making him someone law enforcement officers kept an eye on and contributing to his long list of run-ins with the law.
"He's a different human being who's not out there to incite harm," Sorey's attorney, Nathan Lab, of Omaha, said.
Lab didn't use the term sovereign citizen in reference to Sorey, but Strand mentioned the term's appearance in a presentence report detailing Sorey's criminal history and personal background. Among other things, sovereign citizens believe they, rather than law enforcement or elected officials, can decide which laws to obey. Strand said he was concerned with Sorey's actions, not his beliefs, that landed him before him.
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Sorey, 37, of Milford, Iowa, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Sioux City in September to one count of possession of an unregistered explosive device.
He was charged with making a pipe bomb, two CO2 (carbon dioxide) cartridge bombs and a CO2 cartridge bomb attached to an arrow. Authorities who executed search warrants at three addresses in Milford and neighboring Arnolds Park on Jan. 15, 2020, found the explosives and nine firearms in addition to a small amount of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia.
The searches took place after authorities had found explosives at the site of a truck crash near Knoxville, Iowa, in which Sorey's father, Del Sorey, was killed.
Del Sorey, 62, of Arnolds Park, died Jan. 12, 2020, when the truck he was driving rolled into the ditch and caught fire. Ammunition and consumer-grade fireworks were consumed in the fire, and authorities found three homemade explosive devices, which had been ejected from the truck during the crash.
Del and Darrell Sorey had been traveling together, but Darrell Sorey parted from his father prior to the crash. Authorities have declined to say if the explosives found at the crash site had been made by Darrell Sorey and they also did not know what the explosives were to be used for.
Darrell Sorey also had faced charges of possession of a firearm by a drug user and making an unregistered explosive device. Those charges were dismissed as part of a plea agreement.
