A U.S. Navy SEAL, who displayed neo-Nazi symbols and praised terrorist groups, was convicted on Jan. 12 of planning to use explosives against police at a California protest, federal prosecutors said on Monday.
A federal jury found Gregory Vandenberg, 49, guilty of “transporting explosives with intent to kill, injure or intimidate” law enforcement officers, and of trying to bring illegal fireworks into the state.
Prosecutors said Vandenberg was driving from El Paso to San Diego ahead of the June 14, 2025, “No Kings Day” protests when he stopped at a travel center in New Mexico. There, Vandenberg wore a shirt that read “Amalek,” a reference to a biblical tribe and nemesis of the Jews.
At the travel center, he bought mortar fireworks and dozens of M-150 firecrackers and told a store clerk he planned to throw the fireworks at police officers and asked how much damage they could cause, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Alarmed by his comments, store employees recorded his license plate and shared it with authorities. Federal agents arrested Vandenberg the next morning while he was sleeping in his car at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson.
A search of his vehicle recovered shirts with neo-Nazi symbols, an al-Qaeda flag, a reference to Israel attacking the USS Liberty in 1968 and a claim, in Latin, that “Judea must be destroyed.”
FBI agents also found a Taliban flag displayed on the home screen of Vandenberg’s phone. Investigators found phone messages “suggesting Vandenberg was upset with the U.S. government, including President Trump, because he viewed the U.S. government as being controlled by Israel and the Jews,” per the Justice Department.
The verdict came after a five-day trial and about three hours of jury deliberations. Vandenberg remains in federal custody awaiting sentencing and faces up to 10 years in prison.
