A former leader of an extremist group was sentenced to three and a half years in prison on Tuesday for his role in a “swatting” scheme whose targets included journalists, a sitting cabinet secretary and a predominantly Black church, federal prosecutors said. John Cameron Denton, 27, of Montgomery, Texas, whom the Justice Department identified as a former leader of the Atomwaffen Division, a paramilitary neo-Nazi group, was sentenced to 41 months in prison for his role in a swatting conspiracy in which he and others reported false claims involving “pipe bombs, hostage takings or other violent activity” to the authorities in hopes of drawing a forceful police response to the front door of an unwitting third party. Their efforts led to attacks on 134 locations across the country from October 2018 to February 2019, according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Prosecutors said that Mr. Denton and many of his co-conspirators “chose targets because they were motivated by racial animus.”“The defendants caused irreversible trauma to the victims of these hate-based crimes,” Raj Parekh, the acting U.S. attorney for Virginia’s Eastern District, said in a statement. “This case sends an unmistakable message that those who target individuals because of their race, religion or any other form of bias will be identified, apprehended and brought to justice.”

Source: New York Times May 04, 2021 22:21 UTC