New York
AP
—
The leader of an Eastern European neo-Nazi group has pleaded guilty in New York to making an attempt to recruit others to commit violent assaults towards Jews and racial minorities, together with one plot that would have involved dressing as Santa Claus to hand out poisoned candy to kids.
Federal prosecutors stated they might search a sentence of up to 18 years for Michail Chkhikvishvili, a 22-year-old from the Republic of Georgia who goes by the nickname “Commander Butcher.” He pleaded guilty Monday earlier than a federal decide in Brooklyn to soliciting hate crimes and distributing details about making bombs and ricin.
Prosecutors described Chkhikvishvili because the leader of the Maniac Murder Cult, a world extremist group that adheres to an ideology that promotes violence supposed to set off a racial and spiritual struggle.
They stated the group’s violent solicitations — promoted via Telegram channels and outlined a manifesto referred to as the “Hater’s Handbook” — seem to have impressed a number of real-life killings, together with a faculty taking pictures in Nashville, Tennessee, earlier this 12 months that left a 16-year-old pupil lifeless.
Chkhikvishvili was arrested in July 2024 in Moldova. He was extradited to the United States in May.
Since 2022, Chkhikvishvili has traveled on a number of events to Brooklyn, the place he bragged about beating up an aged Jewish man and instructed others, primarily via textual content messages, to commit violent acts on behalf of the Maniac Murder Cult, in accordance to prosecutors.
When he was approached by an undercover FBI agent in 2023, Chkhikvishvili recruited the official to varied schemes, together with one that may have concerned dressing up as Santa Claus to give poisoned candy to racial minorities, in accordance to prosecutors.
The plot later advanced into poisoning kids at Jewish faculties in Brooklyn, prosecutors stated.
Prosecutors stated in a courtroom submitting that when Chkhikvishvili described his want to perform a mass casualty assault in the United States, he stated he noticed the nation as having “big potential” due to easy accessibility to firearms. They additionally stated he advised concentrating on homeless individuals as a result of the federal government wouldn’t care “even if they die.”