A Michigan man was sentenced Tuesday to 26 months' incarceration for defacing a Jewish synagogue with swastikas and white supremacist group images. Nathan Weeden, 23, conspired with others as a member of The Base, a multi-state U.S. white supremacist group, to vandalize Temple Jacob in Hancock on September 21st 2019.
A federal jury in January convicted the Houghton man for conspiracy against rights and damage to religious property under two civil rights statutes.
The FBI arrested Weeden in Saline after an indictment against him was unsealed. Weeden and other members of The Base used an encrypted messaging platform to plan vandalization of property associated with African Americans and Jewish Americans, including the Temple Jacob vandalization, investigators said.
Weeden's co-conspirators, Richard Tobin, of New Jersey and Yousef Barasneh, of Wisconsin both previously pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges related to the incident.
The evidence at trial established that, in September 2019, Weeden, Tobin, and Barasneh—all members of The Base—used an encrypted messaging platform to discuss vandalizing property associated with Black and Jewish Americans.
Weeden and his co-conspirators dubbed their plan, "Operation Kristallnacht," a term that means "Night of Broken Glass," and refers to events that took place on November 9th and 10th in 1938, when Nazis murdered Jews and burned and destroyed their homes, synagogues, schools, and businesses.
Weeden carried out this plan on September 21st 2019, when he spray-painted swastikas and symbols associated with The Base on the outside walls of Temple Jacob.
REPORT: 50% Rise in White Supremacist Hate Groups, 33% Rise in Anti-LGBTQ Hate Groups
Emboldened by the mainstreaming of hard-right politics ahead of a presidential election cycle, white nationalist and anti-LGBTQ groups increased to record levels in the United States last year, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center's latest annual report on hate and extremism. The SPLC, which has published the annual report since 1990, documented 835 active anti-government groups, up 133 from 2022's count, and 595 hate groups, an increase of 72 over the previous year's figure.
Accounting for a large portion of the increase was a 50% surge in white supremacy hate groups in 2023, the highest jump ever recorded by the SPLC, growing to 165 over 109 in 2022. White power and neo-Nazi rallies across the U.S. totaled 143 in 2023. SPLC saw a 33% rise in anti-LGBTQ organizations over last year, bringing the total to 86. The group said the growth was largely attributable to the anti-trans movement on the far-right.
A New Jersey state trooper who sparked a multi-day search after disappearing from a medical rehabilitation facility in Pennsylvania was fired following an internal investigation into his white supremacist tattoos, state records show.
An internal probe taken over by the state Office of Public Integrity and Accountability found Trooper Jason Dare violated State Police policies involving social media and conflicts of interest in part due to his "visible tattoos associated with groups espousing racist ideology."
His disappearance prompted the New Jersey State Police to take the unusual step of putting out a public alert, treating it as a missing persons case. Comments on the division's social media posts soon began raising questions about the trooper's tattoos, including a "Blood and Honor" neck tattoo visible in the photos posted by police.
"Blood and honor" was the motto adopted by the Hitler Youth during World War II.
Internet sleuths later found photos on Dare's Facebook page that revealed he had more troublesome ink, including Iron Crosses on his wrists, and the logo of a Pennsylvania-based white supremacist group, the Keystone State Skinheads.
He had also shared posts on Facebook alluding to white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups. The New Jersey Attorney General's Office of Public Integrity and Accountability launched an internal investigation into Dare following the complaints about his tattoos.
A group of extremists unfurled a Nazi flag during a rally Saturday on the steps of South Dakota's state capitol building in Pierre.
Pictures taken by onlookers and shared on social media depict a group of at least 15 individuals wearing red shirts, black masks, and black pants standing in front of the capitol entrance, with three Nazi supporters holding the flag.
Christopher Pohlhaus, leader of Blood Tribe, a neo-Nazi group, claimed his members were responsible for the display in response to South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem's statement on the situation.
Mark Adams Prieto, 58, of Prescott was indicted by a federal grand jury today on Firearms Trafficking, Transfer of a Firearm for Use in a Hate Crime, and Possession of an Unregistered Firearm.
The indictment alleges that, between January 2024 and May 2024, Prieto had discussions with two individuals working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to devise a plan to commit a mass shooting of African Americans and other minorities to incite a race war prior to the 2024 United States Presidential Election.
Prieto did not know the individuals were working with the government, but instead believed that they shared his racist beliefs and wanted to commit a mass shooting to incite a race war. The targeted event was a concert in Atlanta that was going to be held on May 14 and May 15, 2024.
The indictment further alleges that, having discussed specific details about the planned attack, Prieto sold two rifles to one of the individuals, an AK-style rifle on February 25, 2024 and an AR-style rifle on March 24, 2024.
During the entire investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation closely monitored Prieto's movements. On May 14th 2024, Prieto was stopped by law enforcement driving east from Arizona through New Mexico along Interstate 40.
Prieto was in possession of seven firearms and was taken into federal custody. Law enforcement then executed a search warrant at his home in Prescott. Law enforcement found more firearms in his residence, including an unregistered short-barreled rifle.
Each conviction for Firearms Trafficking and Transfer of Firearm for Use in a Hate Crime carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, a fine of $250,000 or both. A conviction for Possession of an Unregistered Firearm carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, a fine of $250,000 or both.
Man Pleads Guilty to Nazi Threats Against Synagogues
Donavon Parish, 29, of Hattiesburg, Mississippi pleaded guilty today to one count of cyberstalking and five counts of abuse and harassment using a telecommunications device. Parish also admitted to a special finding that he targeted his victims based on their actual and perceived religion.
According to court documents, during April and May 2022, the defendant used a voiceover internet protocol service to make a series of phone calls to synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
In these calls, the defendant spoke to individuals answering the telephone calls on behalf of their respective institutions, at which time he repeatedly referenced the genocide of approximately six million Jewish people during the Holocaust, stating, among other things, "Heil Hitler," "all Jews must die," "we will put you in work camps," "gas the Jews," and "Hitler should have finished the job."
Parish is scheduled to be sentenced on September 24th, and faces a statutory maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, three years of supervised release, a $1.5 million fine, and a $600 special assessment.
A Tampa dentist was indicted for sending hundreds of racially-charged threats, praising Donald Trump. Richard Glenn Kantwill, 60, of Tampa was charged with three counts of interstate transmission of a threat to injure. Kantwill sent about 100 threats to more than 40 victims between August 2019 and July 2020.
The FBI interviewed Kantwill on October 15th 2019, after someone complained about threatening messages and warned him to stop, according to a pre-trial motion for detention. "Despite the FBI's warning, Kantwill spent the next 10 months sending threats to over 40 victims via social media and email," prosecutors wrote, noting that they are aware of a violent threat as recently as February.
In one threat sent to a journalist, Kantwill wrote:
"You, sir, are a degenerate piece of shit. I read your article about The Great Donald Trump. It is so blatantly prejudiced that you don't even attempt to be impartial, you ******. You are gay, I can tell. **** you. I love what Trump does and where he stays. You ignorant ******* never cared about the great ghetto ****** Obama and how he got rich but your going to get a hard-on about where Trump stays? So blatantly ignorant and liberally immoral. God Bless the Great President Trump and his family. **** you and yours. Hire extra security, you're gonna need it. I plan on ****ing you up, just for the fun of it."
To a victim in July 2020, when protests around the police killing of George Floyd were fresh, he texted:
"Hey ******, ever get tired of losing??? Cannot wait to shoot your ghetto ass in the street. You will die like every other ****** piece of shit."
The dentist also boasted about his weapons, saying on Facebook that he had a collection of guns and that he would "NEVER surrender." Investigators said Kantwill has 15 self-reported firearms.
Samuel Woodward, a California man accused of murdering his former classmate in 2018, has been found guilty in the hate crime case. Blaze Bernstein—a 19-year-old gay, Jewish student at the University of Pennsylvania—went missing while visiting his family in Newport Beach during winter break in January 2018.
His body was found following a dayslong search buried in a park in Lake Forest he went to with Woodward. He had been stabbed 28 times. Woodward, now 26, was charged with first-degree murder with a hate crime enhancement. Prosecutors had alleged that Woodward murdered his classmate because Bernstein was gay.
During closing arguments, prosecutor Jennifer Walker emphasized Woodward's affiliation with a violent, anti-gay, antisemitic group known as Atomwaffen Division. "This is a person focused on hate," Walker said. "Not following, not being led by, influenced by, victimized by Atomwaffen—seeking it out."
Prosecutors said Woodward joined Atomwaffen Division and repeatedly targeted gay men online by reaching out to them and then abruptly breaking off contact while keeping a hateful, profanity-laced journal of his actions.
Authorities said they searched Woodward's family home in Newport Beach and found a folding knife with a bloodied blade in his room. They also found a black Atomwaffen mask with traces of blood and a host of anti-gay, antisemitic, and hate group materials, prosecutors said.
Bernstein, a 19-year-old pre-med student at the University of Pennsylvania, disappeared on 2 January 2018 after meeting up with Woodward, then 20, that evening. The pair, who had attended the Orange County High School for the Arts together, had reconnected over the dating app Tinder.
Bernstein's body was found six days later, buried in a park in Orange county. Woodward was the last person Bernstein was in contact with, and immediately fell under suspicion.
Woodward was arrested on 12 January and charged with Bernstein's murder. A few weeks later, it was revealed Woodward was a member of the Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi guerrilla organization implicated in four other murders, multiple bomb plots, and other crimes.
Tennessee Democrats are speaking out after Patriot Front held its annual Independence Day March in downtown Nashville on Saturday. The group posted videos of the march, including "activists" entering downtown, crossing the Cumberland River, marching down Broadway, and giving a speech at Legislative Plaza across from the Tennessee State Capitol.
Democrats denounced the protests, calling the group white supremacists. "Just two days after celebrating the independence of our nation, white supremacists have taken to the streets of Nashville carrying Confederate flags and chanting 'deportation saves the nation' and 'Seig Heil,'" the Tennessee Democratic Party said in a statement.
Observers estimated the number of extremists to be around 150–200.
Andrew Takhistov, 18, of East Brunswick, New Jersey was arrested yesterday and made his initial appearance in court today for soliciting another individual to destroy energy facilities.
"Andrew Takhistov was on his way to Ukraine to join the Russian Volunteer Corps when we arrested him on charges of recruiting an individual to destroy an electrical substation here in the United States in order to advance his white supremacist ideology," said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. "I am grateful to the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force for their exceptional work disrupting this dangerous plot."
"This complaint states that the defendant's posts referenced Adolf Hitler, encouraged violence against black and Jewish communities, praised mass shooters, and discussed causing death and destruction on a large scale," said U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger.
According to court documents, in January, Takhistov began communicating on a social messaging platform with an individual who, unbeknownst to Takhistov, was an undercover law enforcement employee.
Takhistov had previously posted on the messaging platform (often posting in racially/ethnically motivated extremist-aligned channels), requesting advice about weapons, disseminating manuals on how to construct homemade weapons, and expressing interest in traveling overseas to engage in paramilitary-style training.
Throughout Takhistov's communications with the undercover employee, Takhistov repeatedly referred to his RMVE ideology and his desire to advance that ideology through violent means.
In May, Takhistov informed the undercover employee that he was planning to travel to Ukraine in July to join the Russian Volunteer Corps, explaining that he chose this organization because it was openly National Socialist and, more importantly, specialized in assassinations, attacks on power grids, and other infrastructure sabotage.
Takhistov was arrested Wednesday afternoon at Newark Liberty International Airport where he was planning to travel to Paris on his way to Ukraine.
Takhistov is charged with one count of soliciting another individual to engage in criminal conduct that involved destroying a public service enterprise group circuit breaker and substation. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $125,000 fine.
For the second time in as many weeks, a hate group stationed themselves in downtown Nashville and passed out flyers against those who were Jewish and in the LGBTQ community. The group kept passing out flyers that labeled Jewish people as pedophiles and screaming that those who are LGBTQ needed to "get the **** home."
Their shirts read "pro white" on the front. On the back of the shirt, it read "whites against replacement." They stood alongside a Nazi flag and a sign that said "Let's Go Brandon." Men in the group were raising their arms in the same salute as Nazi soldiers did to Adolf Hitler. "The Holocaust never happened," they told a camera crew.
A federal grand jury in Brooklyn, New York returned a four-count indictment today, charging Georgian national Michail Chkhikvishvili, 21, also known as "Mishka," "Michael," "Commander Butcher," and "Butcher," with soliciting hate crimes and acts of mass violence in New York City.
According to court documents, Chkhikvishvili was arrested pursuant to an Interpol Wanted Person Diffusion, which was issued based on a criminal complaint.
Chkhikvishvili is the leader of the Maniac Murder Cult, also known as "Maniacs Murder Cult," "Maniacs: Cult of Killing," "MKY," "MMC," and "MKU," an international racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist group.
MKY adheres to a neo-Nazi accelerationist ideology and promotes violence and violent acts against racial minorities, the Jewish community, and other groups it deems "undesirables."
MKY members share a common goal of challenging social order and governments via terrorism and violent acts that promote fear and chaos.
MKY has members in the United States and abroad. Chkhikvishvili recruited others to commit violent acts in furtherance of MKY's ideologies, including planning and soliciting a mass casualty attack in New York City from an undercover law enforcement employee whom Chkhikvishvili believed was a prospective MKY recruit.
Since approximately September 2021, Chkhikvishvili has distributed a manifesto titled the "Hater's Handbook" to MKY members and others. The handbook discusses MKY's principles and encourages members to engage in acts of mass violence in furtherance of those principles.
In the handbook, Chkhikvishvili states that he has "murdered for the white race" and encourages and instructs others to commit acts of mass violence and "ethnic cleansing."
For example, the handbook encourages its readers to commit school shootings and to use children to perpetrate suicide bombings and other mass killings targeting racial minorities.
The document describes methods and strategies for committing mass "terror attacks," including using vehicles to target "large outdoor festivals, conventions, celebrations and parades" and "pedestrian congested streets." It specifically encourages committing attacks within the United States.
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