During a press conference, US Attorney Justin Herdman of the Northern District of Ohio announced a single count of transmitting threatening communications via interstate commerce against James Reardon, a self-described white nationalist. He also took a moment to address the rise and disgust of White Supremacy and Terrorism in the United States and not just Youngstown, Ohio.
“Go ahead and make your case for Nazism, a white nation, and racial superiority,” he said. “The Constitution may give you a voice, but it doesn’t guarantee you a receptive audience. Your right to free speech does not automatically mean that people will agree with you. In fact, you have a God-given and inalienable right to be on the losing end of this argument.
“What you don’t have, though, is the right to take out your frustration at failure in the political arena by resorting to violence. You don’t have any right to threaten the lives and well-being of our neighbors. They have an absolute and God-given and inalienable right to live peacefully, to worship as they please, to be free from fear that they might become a target simply because of the color of their skin, the country of their birth, or the form of their prayer.”
“Threatening to kill Jewish people, gunning down innocent Latinos on a weekend shopping trip, planning and plotting to perpetrate murders in the name of a nonsense racial theory, sitting to pray with God-fearing people who you execute moments later – those actions don’t make you soldiers, they make you cowards. And law enforcement does not go to war with cowards who break the law, we arrest them and send them to prison.”
U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman’s comments on recent Ohio cases involving political violence.
In another case of Domestic Terrorism from Ohio:
A Toledo woman pleaded guilty to terrorism charges related to her role in a conspiracy to launch an attack on a bar in Toledo.
Elizabeth Lecron, 24, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Toledo to one count of conspiracy to provide material support or resources to terrorists and one count transporting explosives in interstate commerce.
Her co-conspirator, Vincent Armstrong, pleaded guilty earlier this month to one count of conspiracy to transport or receive an explosive with intent to kill, injure, or intimidate any individual, and maliciously damage or destroy by fire or explosive.
Lecron’s interests include Dylann Roof and the Columbine High School shooters.
