By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
Suspected members of a white-supremacist group are accused of plotting violence at a gun rally in Richmond on Martin Luther King Jr. Day with the intent of causing what one described as “full-blown civil war,” prosecutors said in court filings.
The FBI set up a microphone and video camera at a Delaware apartment, where the suspects lived and discussed shooting “unsuspecting civilians and police officers,” derailing trains, sabotaging power lines, and poisoning water supplies, according to legal motions filed Tuesday and obtained by The Washington Post.
“We can’t let Virginia go to waste, we just can’t,” one of the men, Patrik J. Mathews, said, according to the court filings.
Prosecutors said the trio belonged to a militant hate group, “the Base,” inspired by English translation of “al-Qaeda.”
“Here’s the thing,” Matthews is accused of saying. “You want to create . . . instability while the Virginia situation is happening . . . derail some rail lines . . . shut down the highways” as a way to “kick off the economic collapse.”
Videos found on Matthews’ computer espoused “violent, anti-Semitic, and racist language,” according to prosecutors.
The other co-defendants are Brian M. Lemley Jr., and William G. Bilbrough IV, both of whom used gun parts “to make a functioning assault rifle,” according to court documents.
The trio was charged with federal firearms violations, and a court hearing is scheduled Wednesday.
