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.
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.
“[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.