A New Jersey man pleaded guilty in federal court on March 5 to threatening to detonate more than 100 homemade explosive devices outside St. Matthews Cathedral in Washington, D.C., during the annual Red Mass offered toward all members of the legal profession regardless of religious affiliation.
Though Supreme Court justices regularly attend Washington’s Red Mass, none was present this time due to security concerns.
Louis Geri, 41, from Vineland in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, pleaded guilty to “a count of Hobbs Act extortion by wrongful use of force, violence, or fear, and to a count of possession of an unregistered firearm,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said.
According to prosecutors, Geri arrived on a motorcycle at the cathedral on Rhode Island Ave NW on the evening of Oct. 4, 2025, and set up a tent on the church’s front steps.
Inside the tent, he assembled more than 100 improvised bombs made from materials including nitromethane, magnesium, charcoal and thermite that he had purchased in Arkansas and assembled in Virginia.
The Red Mass was scheduled to take place the following morning.
At about 5 am on Oct. 5, Metropolitan Police Department officers approached the tent while patrolling the area before the Red Mass, and told Geri he would need to move. Prosecutors said he refused and “threatened to throw one of his explosive devices into the street to demonstrate its destructive power.”
Geri told officers “several of your people are gonna die from these” and asked for federal agents to negotiate his demands, which included “hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to himself and others, extended accommodations at the Mayflower Hotel, an expatriation flight to Japan, and requests that the Supreme Court remove Arizona from the United States and declare it a ‘foreign enemy.’”
Prosecutors said he also “made numerous demands directed at leaders of the Catholic and Jewish faiths.”
Officers arrested Geri after he briefly emerged from the tent. Authorities found one explosive device in his pocket and more than 100 additional devices inside the tent. FBI testing confirmed the devices were operable bombs.
According to prosecutors, “Geri waived his Miranda rights and described the devices as ‘grenades’ and ‘rockets.’”
Geri said he “was willing to use the devices to harm people and property—including St. Matthew’s Cathedral, the White House, the Washington Monument, the U.S. Capitol and the Supreme Court.”
“Threatening to detonate devices on the steps of a Catholic church—or any religious institution—is a violation not only of our way of life, but of the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion,” said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.
