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US jury convicts leader of neo-Nazi threat campaign

FILE - In this Feb. 26, 2020, file photo, Raymond Duda, special agent in charge in Seattle, speaks as he stands next to a poster that was mailed earlier in the year to the home of Chris Ingalls, an investigative reporter with KING-TV in Seattle, during a news conference in Seattle. A federal jury in Seattle on Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2021, convicted Kaleb Cole, a leader of a neo-Nazi campaign to threaten journalists and Jewish activists in three states. Cole and three others were charged last year with having sent Swastika-laden posters to journalists and people affiliated with the Anti-Defamation League in Washington, Florida and Arizona. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File) (Ted S. Warren, Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

SEATTLE ā€“ A federal jury in Seattle on Wednesday convicted a leader of a neo-Nazi campaign to threaten journalists and Jewish activists in three states.

The jury deliberated for about 90 minutes Wednesday following a two-day trial before convicting 25-year-old Kaleb Cole of five felony charges, including conspiracy, mailing threatening communications and interfering with a federally protected activity. He could face a decade in prison when Judge John C. Coughenour sentences him in January.

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Cole, most recently of Montgomery, Texas, was a leader of a hate group called Atomwaffen Division. He and four others were charged last year with having cyberstalked and sent Swastika-laden posters to journalists and employees of the Anti-Defamation League in Washington state, Arizona and Florida, telling them, ā€œYou have been visited by your local Nazis,ā€ ā€œYour Actions have Consequences,ā€ and ā€œWe are Watching.ā€

The posters included images such as a hooded figure preparing to throw a Molotov cocktail at a house, and the words ā€œDeath to Pigs" ā€” the same message followers of Charles Manson scrawled in victimsā€™ blood during a home invasion murder.

Cole has been on law enforcementā€™s radar since at least 2018, when he was stopped at U.S. Customs upon returning from a trip to Europe. Authorities searched his cell phone and found photos of him at various sites throughout Europe, displaying a white supremacist flag and performing the Nazi salute.

In 2019, Seattle police obtained an ā€œextreme risk protection orderā€ against him, seizing nine guns from his home. They said Cole had ā€œgone from espousing hate to now taking active steps or preparation for an impending ā€˜race war.ā€™ā€

Those steps including organizing paramilitary-style ā€œhate campsā€ in Nevada and Washington, investigators said.

During the trial, victims testified about the impact of receiving the posters, the U.S. attorney's office said in a news release. Some temporarily left their homes and installed security systems; one bought a gun and took a firearms safety class; and another left her job as a journalist.

In his closing argument, assistant U.S. attorney Thomas Woods told the jury Cole ā€œwas not simply sending a message of hate, he was sending a statement of terror.ā€

Cole did not call any witnesses or testify on his own behalf. His attorney, Chris Black, argued that the posters did not constitute threats.

ā€œWhat we have here is a group of disillusioned young men who want to believe that they are engaged in some sort of propaganda war with journalists and organizations like the Anti-Defamation League,ā€ Black said. ā€œBut they never engaged in violence. They never planned violence. And most importantly, they never intended to communicate an actual threat to commit violence.ā€

His three co-defendants pleaded guilty and have already been sentenced, with the other leader of the conspiracy, Cameron Shea, receiving a three-year term after apologizing and saying, ā€œI cannot put into words the guilt that I feel about this fear and pain that I caused.ā€

Johnny Roman Garza, of Queen Creek, Arizona, was sentenced to 16 months for affixing one of the posters on the bedroom window of a Jewish journalist.

Taylor Parker-Dipeppe, of Spring Hill, Florida, received no prison time for attempting to deliver a flier but leaving it at the wrong address. Parker-Dipeppe was severely abused by his father and stepfather and hid his transgender identity from his co-conspirators ā€” the judge found that he had suffered enough.


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