In 2002, a pair of

white supremacists White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White s ...

planned to bomb a series of institutions and people associated with

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

and

American Jewish American Jews or Jewish Americans are Americans, American citizens who are Jewish, whether by Judaism, religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who desce ...

communities.

Crime

Jesse Jackson at Max Palevsky Cinema crop

Leo Felton and Erica Chase, a boyfriend and girlfriend team, planned to blow up a museum with a

fertilizer bomb ANFO ( ) (or AN/FO, for ammonium nitrate/fuel oil) is a widely used bulk industrial explosive. It consists of 94% porous prilled ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3) (AN), which acts as the oxidizing agent and absorbent for the fuel, and 6% number 2 fue ...

, as was used in the

Oklahoma City bombing The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorism in the United States, domestic terrorist truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, on April 19, 1995. Perpetrated by two anti-federal go ...

. Felton wanted to rid the United States of those he called "mud people"; Asians, Blacks, Latinos and Jews. A member of the White Order of Thule, Felton was also ironically part

. Chase was a member of the

Creativity Movement Creativity, historically known as The (World) Church of the Creator, is an atheistic ( "nontheistic") white supremacist religious movement which espouses white separatism, antitheism, antisemitism, scientific racism, homophobia, and religious ...

. Felton then robbed a bank with a friend from prison and forged money in order to buy materials to create a fertilizer bomb. Targets included the

United States Holocaust Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust his ...

, the New England Holocaust Memorial; well-known American Jews, including Steven Spielberg; and black leaders, including Rev. Jesse Jackson. In April 2021, an attendant at a donut shop spotted a counterfeit $20 bill that Chase tried to pass him. He alerted an off-duty Boston police officer, who then arrested Chase and Felton. A subsequent search of Felton's apartment yielded large quantities of evidence, including self-drawn cartoons of Felton blowing up the Boston offices of the Anti-defamation League.

Trial and sentencing

The trial resulted in a conviction for both Felton and Chase on charges of conspiracy to commit bank robbery and plotting to blow up landmarks associated with Jews and African-Americans. Felton was sentenced to 21 years in prison, while Chase was sentenced to 57 months, although Judge Nancy Gertner had set aside the jury's conviction on a gun possession charge. A federal appeals court reinstated the gun charge in 2005, requiring Gertner to decide on appending longer sentences within a surplus of five years on Chase and Felton; in 2006, Gertner added a full five years to Felton's sentence (resulting in an increase from 21 years and 10 months to 26 years and 10 months), while only additional three months was appended to Chase's sentence, the judge stating that Chase had "made a profound change in her life".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:White Supremacist Terror Plot Neo-fascist terrorist incidents in the United States Terrorist incidents in the United States in 2002 21st-century attacks on synagogues and Jewish communal organizations in the United States Failed terrorist attempts in the United States

Crime

Trial and sentencing

See also

References