White supremacists threaten state attorney, judge, agent
Posted: June 11, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: American Front, far right violence, FBI Leave a commentCentral figures in the prosecution of the American Front white supremacy group have received death threats on several websites in recent weeks.
Family members of Orange-Osceola State Attorney Lawson Lamar, Circuit Judge Walter Komanski and an agent assigned to the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force are named in the detailed threats demanding the immediate release of more than a dozen American Front members arrested last month.
The deadline passed in late May without any known acts of violence.
“We are at your houses, we are at your kids houses we are your grandkids houses and we are sitting outside their schools,” it reads in part. “Don’t believe me? Here you are pigs, here you are:… we are going to CUT THEIR …HEADS OFF and leave them in A COOLER OUTSIDE YOUR OFFICE.”
The anonymous writer included what were claimed to be the unlisted home addresses of Lamar, Komanski and JTTF Agent Kelly Boaz.
“We are aware of the threats and there is an active federal investigation,” FBI spokesman Dave Couvertier said Friday afternoon. “We always address these threats with the utmost seriousness.”
Lamar, who has 40 years of experience as a prosecutor and former Orange County Sheriff, described deaths threats as an occasional test of public servants’ resolve to uphold the rule of law.
“If a threat is successful…there will be five more good guys standing ready to carry out the mission,” he said Friday. “I have been shot at before and would just as soon not be shot at again but it comes with the territory.”
Komanski could not be reached. Boaz declined comment.
Arrests of American Front members began May 4 after a two-year undercover investigation of allegations of anti-government paramilitary training in a remote area of eastern Osceola County.
So far, 13 men and women have been charged and one suspect remains at large in what has become one the largest U.S. domestic terrorism cases in more than a decade. Unlike most cases with one to four defendants, the 14 accused American Front members include nine charged with conspiring to attack an undisclosed target.
A raid by the Joint Terrorism Task Force of a 10-acre wooded lot and home near Holopaw seized about 20 firearms from its owners, American Front leader Marcus Faella and his wife Patricia. That’s where all 14 defendants are charged with conducting anti-government paramilitary training, court records show.
The threats were posted on the websites of the Anti-Defamation League, Virtual Jerusalem: The Place Where Jews Click, as well as white supremacist blogs and a yahoo.com article, “American Front: Terrorism in the United States.”.
“No threats allowed,” reads a warning at nimbusters.org, a blog that removed the threat, screen grabs show. But another post on the blog repeats the addresses of Lamar, Komanski and Boaz with a claim that the FBI has taken over the American Front’s website.
Attacks on judges, prosecutors and cops in cases remain rare in the United States, according to ADL Research Director Mark Pitcavage, who formerly held the same position at theU.S. Department of Justice’s State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training (SLATT) program.
However, a death threat was recently made against the judge in the George Zimmerman case, Seminole County Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester, as well as a federal judge in Virginia as a case involving a neo-Nazi. All three threats use similar phrases and provided the judges’ home addresses.
An authority on domestic terrorism, Pitcavage said anti-government extremists have been linked to retaliation attacks more often than white supremacists or other groups. Violence most often is the work of a “lone wolf” or a couple of members of a group frustrated by other members’ inaction.
“It’s disturbing when people responsible for protecting our society are getting threatened,” Pitcavage said
Alleged members of white supremacist group charged in Florida
Posted: June 4, 2012 Filed under: American Front, far right violence | Tags: American Front, Florida, Marcus Faella, Patricia Faella Leave a comment
More than a dozen alleged members of American Front, a down-on-its-luck white supremacist group, were charged Friday in Florida with participating in paramilitary training, prosecutors said.
The alleged ringleader of the group, Marcus Faella, was also charged with directing the activities of a gang and teaching paramilitary training, they said. Nine members of the group, including Faella and his wife, Patricia Faella, were charged with conspiracy to shoot at, within or into a building.
According to police, Faella was planning to stage provocative disruptions at the Orlando City Hall and at a Melbourne, Florida, anarchist gathering that included members of anti-racist skinhead groups.
Faella, police documents say, wanted to stir up media attention to help gain new recruits for American Front, which hate-tracking groups says has been faltering since the death of its leader, David Lynch, in California.
All but one of the 14 people accused in the investigation have been arrested, according to prosecutors. That person’s identity is being held pending arrest.
“Today, Central Floridians sent a strong message to our communities: the message that criminal behavior whose thesis is hate and intolerance will not be allowed to flourish in our neighborhoods,” said Lawson Lamar, state attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida.
Nationally, American Front has had a long and violent history, including the beating death of a Salt Lake City man and a string of 1993 bombings in California, according to hate-tracking groups.
The 25-year-old group enjoyed a resurgence in 2007 under Lynch, described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a charismatic leader who helped form it in 1987. But Lynch was shot to death in his home in March 2011, leaving the group with no clear leader, according to the Anti-Defamation League. It has shrunk significantly in the past year, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Most of the group’s 50 or so members appear to live in Florida, according to the ADL.
“Faella views himself and the other members of the AF as the protectors of the white race,” investigators wrote in an affidavit, referring to the group by its initials. “Faella has stated his intent during the race war is to kill Jews, immigrants and other minorities.”
Faella bonded out of jail on Saturday, according to Osceola County, Florida officials. His wife was released on Sunday, they said.
According to police, Faella’s group watched videos training them in fighting and the use of AK-47s and other weapons at the compound, which the affidavit said is ringed with barbed wire and protected by pit bulls and firing positions facing the driveway.
The property was meant to become a refuge for white supremacists after the fall of the U.S. government during a race war, investigators wrote.
The group was making body armor and sniper suits and stocking up on supplies in preparation, according to police.
American Front was Planning Violence
Posted: May 14, 2012 Filed under: American Front, Dylan Rettenmaier, Florida, Jennifer McGowen, Marcus Faella, Mark McGowan, Nazi, Patricia Faella, white supremacist | Tags: American Front, Dylan Rettenmaier, Florida, Jennifer McGowen, Marcus Faella, Mark McGowan, Nazi, Patricia Faella, white supremacist Leave a commentMembers of the American Front – a well-armed, militia-style white supremacist group in Florida – were planning acts of violence and preparing for “an inevitable race war” when 11 of them were arrested last week, court documents say.
The documents, the outgrowth of a two-year investigation, also say American Front members received paramilitary training at a fortified compound near St. Cloud, Fla., from one of its Missouri members who is a U.S. military reservist. He was not among those arrested.
The American Front compound is on 10 acres in Florida’s Osceola County and is owned by group leader Marcus Faella, 39, and his wife, Patricia, 36, who were among those arrested on state charges of conducting illegal paramilitary training, attempting to shoot into an occupied dwelling, and prejudice while committing a crime.
Marcus Faella was “working intently” to turn the property, which adjoins the sprawling woodlands and wetlands of the Bull Creek Wildlife Management Area, into an “Aryan compound where all the AF members could live when the United States Government fails,” the court documents say.
The property, which features fortified gun entrenchments, is surrounded by barbed wire and protected by guard dogs. In a mobile home where the Faellas lived, Marcus Faella “reinforced the walls and has cut firing ports out of the sides,” the documents say.
The documents describe the American Front as a “militia-styled, anti-Semitic, white supremacist, skinhead organization (that) is a known domestic terrorist organization.”
“Marcus Faella has been planning and preparing the AF for what he believes to be an inevitable race war” and has been stockpiling ammunition, water and other supplies, the court document says. Members also were making ghillie suits to better conceal themselves during paramilitary maneuvers in addition to homemade body armor, it adds.
Faella, who considers himself and other American Front members “as the protectors of the white race,” has said his intention “during the race war is to kill Jews, immigrants and other minorities,” the document says.
Full-fledged or “patched members” of the American Front were required to undergo regular training at the compound, where classes were conducted on firearms, explosives and military tactics.
At a training session in February, Faella reported on another American Front chapter in Oregon and how it was expanding, with its members purchasing AK-47 assault rifles and conducting paramilitary training, the document says.
“During shooting drills, Faella would use jugs of water and told participants to visualize the jugs being nigger’s [sic] heads while they were shooting at them,” the document says. He “also would make threatening remarks toward Jewish people while conducting combat training.”
Faella also was making “plans for members of AF to go out and cause disturbances” in various communities, including at the Orlando City Hall and at a May Day demonstration in Melbourne, Fla. The AF members also discussed assaulting anti-racist skinheads known as SHARPS (Skin Heads Against Racial Prejudice).
The arrests were triggered when “law enforcement became concerned about the pending violence Faella was planning” and his demand to see if members were using their cell phones to secretly record illegal activities.
Others arrested as part of the investigation were: Verlin C. Lewis, 40, of Lynn Haven, Fla.; Mark McGowan, 29, and Jennifer McGowan, 25, of Canaveral Groves, Fla.; Christopher Brooks, 27, of Palm Bay, Fla.; Diane Stevens, 28, Dustin Perry, 27, and Richard Stockdale, 23, all of Kissimmee, Fla.; and Paul Jackson, 25, and Kent McLellan, 22, both of St. Cloud. Authorities say they are looking for a 12th member of the group, identified as Dylan Rettenmaier.
The group’s activity in Florida dates back to the 1980s when its late founder, David Lynch, lived in the state. Lynch, who moved to California and led a major resurgence of the group about five years ago, was murdered in his Sacramento home in March 2011. His murder remains unsolved.
SPLC
Racist Skinhead Leaders Arrested in Florida Conspiracy
Posted: May 8, 2012 Filed under: 1st SS Kavallerie Brigade Motorcycle Division, American Front, Diane Stevens, Marcus Faella, Mark McGowan, Orange County, Patricia Faella | Tags: 1st SS Kavallerie Brigade Motorcycle Division, American Front, Diane Stevens, Marcus Faella, Mark McGowan, Orange County, Patricia Faella Leave a comment
Three Florida leaders of the American Front, a California-based group of racist skinheads known for its predilection for violence, have been arrested on conspiracy and hate crime charges, along with four other members of the gang.Two of the leaders — Marcus Faella and his wife Patricia Faella — were arrested on Friday, while the third, Mark McGowan, was picked up over the weekend, as were the four lower-ranking group members. The three leaders were charged with instructing another person in the use of firearms or explosives while knowing that they would be used “in, or in furtherance of, a civil disorder in the United States.
Officials in Florida initially offered few details of the arrests or the alleged conspiracy. But a source close to the investigation said they are, in effect, the second round in a major, ongoing investigation.
In late March, the Orange County, Fla., Sheriff’s Office in Orlando announced the arrests of sixpeople who belonged to or were associated with the Outlaws motorcycle club or the 1st SS Kavallerie Brigade Motorcycle Division, a neo-Nazi gang started by former Aryan Nations official August Kreis III. A sheriff’s official said the group wanted to “blow up buildings and houses” and to kill rivals.
The details of the latest alleged plot, and the possible relationship of the American Front members to the SS Kavallerie Brigade and Outlaw groups remains murky. Other American Front members arrested today include Diane Stevens, Kent McLellan, Paul Jackson and Jennifer McGowan, the wife of Mark McGowan.
The American Front was started in the late 1980s. It became a well-known group in the early 1990s, but was associated with a large amount of violence, which may have accounted for its fading later in the decade as law enforcement brought several major cases. It saw a major resurgence around 2007 under David Lynch, a charismatic leader in Sacramento, Calif., who was one of the group’s original founders But Lynch was murdered by an unknown attacker in his home on March 2, 2011, and in California, at least, the group has shrunk significantly since that time. Now, most of its activities — and, apparently, most of its members — are in Florida.
The American Front is known to have been associated with the Confederate Hammerskins, another racist skinhead group known for its violence. In 1993, Marcus Faella was the director of the Melbourne, Fla., chapter of that group.
The American Front has a long association with criminal violence. In 1990, John Daly, a member who was secretly Jewish, was nearly killed after group members learned of his background and tried to drown him in the surf in Daytona Beach, Fla. The next year, according to the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, police in Beaverton, Ore., found a hit list of Portland law enforcement officers targeted by the group. In 1993, the consortium said, American Front members were implicated in a series of bomb attacks on black, gay and Jewish people. At the time, prosecutors described the attacks as part of an attempt to ignite a race war.
The American Front is officially based in Sacramento, Calif., and last year had chapters in the Florida towns of Lynn Haven and St. Cloud, along with others in the New Jersey cities of Hackensack, Haledon and Roselle.
Anti Fascists Online 