[4] Over the next five years he spent time between California and Russia, teaching English in Samara and Kazan before settling in San Diego in 2011.
[4][5] In 2017, announcing withdrawal of the California Independence Referendum ballot measure from the 2018 election, Marinelli confirmed his intention to live in Russia, stating "I have found in Russia a new happiness, a life without the albatross of frustration and resentment towards ones' homeland, and a future detached from the partisan divisions and animosity that has thus far engulfed my entire adult life.
[3] In the summer of 2019, Marinelli was briefly detained by Moscow police while attending an unsanctioned political march in support of investigative journalist Ivan Golunov.
[7] In August 2020, Marinelli authored a Russian-language essay professing his love of reading to young children, and asserting that he was confident that the collapse of the United States was imminent.
Under the name "Sovereign California", Marinelli grew another social media platform on Facebook and Twitter to champion this cause.
[15][non-primary source needed] Marinelli and Marcus Ruiz Evans adopted this idea as the goal of Sovereign California.
This re-branding came as a result of research conducted and assembled into their 165-page report, as well as from feedback from the public while touring the state with their message of devolution.
In 2015, Marinelli was the primary proponent of several citizen's ballot initiatives most of which were related to California's secession from the United States.
Columnist Patt Morrison wrote that Marinelli " has paid $200 a pop to try to get nine initiatives on a statewide ballot, all of them about making California not an entirely separate country but a “first among equals” sovereign entity distinct from those 49 also-rans.