ATOMWAFFEN DIVISION

Neo-Nazi sentenced to prison in plot to threaten journalists

 

NBC News

December 10, 2020 

 

A member of a Neo-Nazi group who sought to threaten journalists and activists, especially Jews and minorities, was sentenced to more than a year in prison on Wednesday.

Johnny Roman Garza, 21, of Arizona, is one of four alleged members of “Atomwaffen Division” who were arrested in four states this year and charged in a plot send threatening posters, to be sentenced.

Garza pleaded guilty in September to a federal conspiracy charge, reported NBC News. He was sentenced to 16 months in prison as well as three years of supervised release, according to the Justice Department.

In January, Garza went to the Arizona home of the editor fo a local Jewish publication and glued a poster to his bedroom window.

The poster, which had the editor’s name and address on it, read in part “Your actions have consequences. Our patience has its limits” and “You have been visited by your local Nazis.”

U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington Brian T. Moran said Garza was not the mastermind of the plot but embraced it.

“Ultimately, in the dark of night, he delivered a hateful, threatening poster — spreading fear and anxiety. Such conduct has no place in our community,” Moran said.

Garza’s attorney said he has since disavowed his views, has gotten counseling and sought to contact groups like the Anti-Defamation League about putting together a program to help keep others from being recruited.

Garza told U.S. District Judge John Coughenour that he was in a time of “darkness and isolation.”

“Very unfortunately, I fell in with the worst crowd you can probably fall in with, a very self-destructive crowd at the least,” Garza told the judge.

The plot was led by two others who have also been charged: Cameron Brandon Shea of Washington state, who allegedly came up with the idea; and Kaleb Cole, the alleged leader of a Washington Atomwaffen Division group who helped create the posters, reported NBC.

Both Shea and Cole are scheduled to go on trial in March.

A fourth person, Taylor Ashley Parker-Dipeppe, 21, of Tampa, has pleaded guilty. His sentencing is scheduled for February,

Garza admitted that before he put up the poster at the editor’s home, he sought to put one up at the Phoenix apartment complex where a member of the Arizona Association of Black Journalists lived, but he couldn’t find a good spot to place it and left.

The judge said it has been troubling to see officials “at the highest levels of our government” refer to journalists as “enemies of the people.”

“Referring to journalism and the press and media as ‘fake news’ enables people who are vulnerable to suggestions like this, very young people … that this kind of conduct is appropriate,” he said.