The man who allegedly murdered six people at a Sikh temple in suburban Milwaukee yesterday, identified in media reports as Wade Michael Page, was a frustrated neo-Nazi who had been the leader of a racist white-power band.

In 2010, Page, then the leader of the band End Apathy, gave an interview to the white supremacist website Label 56. He said that when he started the band in 2005, its name reflected his wish to “figure out how to end people’s apathetic ways” and start “moving forward.” “I was willing to point out some of my faults on how I was holding myself back,” Page said. Later, he added, “The inspiration was based on frustration that we have the potential to accomplish so much more as individuals and a society in whole.” He did not discuss violence in the interview. ( continue to full post… )

Alaska militia leader Francis Schaeffer Cox has fired his attorney, likely laying the groundwork for an appeal of his nine convictions, which include conspiring to kill a judge and law enforcement officials.

In a two-sentence document filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, the 28-year-old leader of the Alaska Peacemakers Militia said he had discharged defense attorney Nelson Traverso. “I do so voluntarily and intelligently and will seek other counsel,” Cox said.

The basis for the firing, Cox contends, is that Traverso was ineffective and didn’t provide a proper defense, leading to Cox’s jury conviction and, quite likely, a lengthy prison sentence. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 14, but that date could be postponed to allow his new attorney time to review the case. ( continue to full post… )

The Justice Department has cut a deal with a former member of the Alaska Peacemaker Militia to bolster its case against the group’s leader Schaeffer Cox and two others on trial in U.S. District Court in Anchorage.

Michael O. Anderson, who was arrested with Cox and co-defendants Lonnie Vernon and Coleman Barney in March 2011, will testify for the prosecution, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported Tuesday as opening arguments were heard. ( continue to full post… )

Two members of a Georgia militia — arrested late last year in a plot to bomb federal buildings, assassinate public officials and attack cities with deadly ricin — pleaded guilty today to conspiracy charges in a Gainesville, Ga., courtroom.

Accused ringleader Frederick W. Thomas, 73, and Emory Dan Roberts, 67, both entered guilty pleas to charges of conspiring to possess explosives and firearms.

The case was labeled by the FBI as one of its top domestic terrorism investigations of 2011 following the arrests of Thomas and Roberts and two others last November. ( continue to full post… )

Federal authorities in New York today unsealed an indictment accusing a 40-year-old man dubbed the “Frappucino firebomber” with hate crimes for New Year’s Day Molotov-cocktail attacks on a mosque and a Hindu temple in Queens.

Ray Lazier Lengend, also known as Suraj Poonai, told police he intended to kill “as many Muslims and Arabs as possible” by throwing firebombs inside the places of worship, the New York Daily News reported shortly after the suspect’s Jan. 3 arrest. ( continue to full post… )

A 27-year-old animal rights activist living with her parents in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, was arrested by federal officials yesterday and charged with asking a hit man to kill a random person wearing fur who was “at least 12 years old.” It was a first in the animal rights movement, whose most radical activists have repeatedly threatened violence and carried out arson attacks but never directly sought to kill someone.

Meredith Marie Lowell was charged with one count of solicitation to commit murder after she corresponded extensively with an undercover law enforcement official who she allegedly sought to pay $730 to carry out the murder at a local library. She suggested he use a gun with a silencer or a “sharp knife that is at least 4 inches long” that could be used to stab the victim to death or slit his or her throat. ( continue to full post… )

In the early hours of March 7, 2009, David Jentsch was startled out of his slumber by the sound of an explosion in his driveway. Running outside, the UCLA professor found that his car had been firebombed. His car was destroyed, and the fire spread to a nearby tree before firefighters were able to control it.

Self-described members of the “Animal Liberation Brigade” claimed responsibility for the firebombing, warning Jentsch in a message posted March 8 on the website of the North American Animal Liberation Press Office (which publishes communiqués from underground animal rights activists) that “we will come for you when you least expect it and do a lot more damanage [sic] than to your property. ( continue to full post… )

The FBI undercover tapes of four North Georgia militiamen arrested Tuesday offer an extraordinary glimpse of the terrorism the group is accused of planning. Details of how they allegedly intended to commit mass murder with deadly ricin, carry out assassinations of officials, and bomb government buildings abound in government affidavits that directly quote the men talking to undercover informants.

But there’s one thing the affidavits don’t tell you: What did these four elderly Georgians allegedly hope to accomplish? About as close as you get to an answer is this cryptic quote from the alleged ringleader, 73-year-old Frederick W. Thomas: “When it comes to saving the Constitution, that means some people gotta die.”

Although the group is not mentioned in the court papers, the organization the men belonged to is certainly the Georgia Militia, which on its Web page identifies one of the accused terrorists, Dan Roberts, 67, as a contact. And the Georgia Militia is one of the hardest line such groups around, going far beyond most militias’ hatred of the federal government to traffic in open racism and anti-Semitism. ( continue to full post… )

Four members of an unnamed North Georgia militia planned to attack cities including Atlanta with deadly ricin, bomb federal buildings and murder law enforcement officials and others, according to charges leveled yesterday.

The four elderly men were arrested after a lengthy investigation that began last March, when a confidential informant began secretly recording the group’s conversations. The man described as the group’s leader, 73-year-old Frederick Thomas, was recorded at a meeting that month allegedly saying, “There’s no way for us, as militiamen, to save this country, to save Georgia, without doing something that’s highly illegal — murder. … When it comes to saving the Constitution, that means some people gotta die.”

Another member of the group, Samuel J. Crump, 68, allegedly said at a September meeting that he wanted to make 10 pounds of deadly ricin powder and disperse in a series of cities. He said that it could be blown out the windows of a car traveling down an interstate without harming the plotters. An affidavit said that Crump just last week said he was going to begin shelling castor beans, from which ricin is manufactured. Another alleged plotter, Ray H. Adams, 65, allegedly said he had a formula for making ricin and knew ways to get the needed ingredients. “I’d say the first ones that need to die is the ones in the government buildings,” Adams allegedly said during an April 2011 meeting. ( continue to full post… )

Serious federal conspiracy and firearms charges remain in place against Alaska militia leader Francis Schaeffer Cox, and he’s still in jail, even though state murder-conspiracy charges have been dismissed. ( continue to full post… )