Neo-Nazi

A federal judge has concluded that two neo-Nazi group members intended to engage in terrorist activity before FBI agents arrested them ahead of a pro-gun rally in Virginia. U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang's decision Monday to apply a "terrorism enhancement" in sentencing the men favors prosecutors' recommendation that both of them get 25 years in prison. Chuang is scheduled to sentence them at separate hearings on Thursday in Maryland. Prosecutors say the men planned to carry out a massacre inspired by their white supremacist ideology. Defense lawyers say an undercover FBI agent tried in vain to bait them into developing a plan for violence.

Federal prosecutors in Maryland are recommending 25-year prison sentences for two neo-Nazi group members who were arrested by the FBI ahead of a gun rights rally at Virginia's Capitol. In a court filing Thursday, prosecutors described former Canadian Armed Forces reservist Patrik Jordan Mathews and U.S. Army veteran Brian Mark Lemley Jr. as domestic terrorists who prepared for a civil war and talked about planning an attack at the January 2020 rally in Virginia. Mathews and Lemley Jr. are scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 28 after pleading guilty to gun charges in June. They were charged along with a third member of The Base, a white supremacist organization. Defense attorneys filed their sentencing memos under seal.