The leader of a neo-Nazi group called the Atomwaffen Division, also known as the National Socialist Order, was convicted in U.S. District Court in Seattle of five federal felonies for threatening journalists and Jewish people connected to the Anti-Defamation League, announced the U.S. Department of Justice.
Following a two-day trial, Kaleb Cole, 25, of Montgomery, Texas, was convicted on Wednesday of conspiracy, three counts of mailing threatening material and one count of interfering with a federally protected activity. Sentencing has been scheduled for Jan. 11.
In January 2020, Cole and other Atomwaffen members intimidated victims by mailing them threatening posters that he created and/or gluing the signs to their homes. The group targeted journalists of color and Jewish people, including two individuals associated with the ADL.
The posters featured threatening images and said, “You have been visited by your local Nazis” or “Death to Pigs,” which is what followers of convicted cult leader Charles Manson wrote in the blood of victims during a home invasion and subsequent murders in California in the summer of 1969.
In the Seattle area, posters were mailed to two individuals connected to the ADL; in Portland, Ore., a poster was glued outside the home of the editor of a Jewish magazine.
“[Cole] was not simply sending a message of hate, he was sending a statement of terror,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Woods told the jury.
Three other co-conspirators have already been sentenced.
