Johnny Roman Garza pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy to mail threatening communications, to commit cyberstalking and to interfere with a federally protected activity.
According to the plea agreement, Garza first got involved with his alleged co-conspirators — Kaleb J. Cole, Cameron Brandon Shea and Taylor Ashley Parker-Dipeppe — in November, when Shea invited the group to a chat room to discuss a plot to threaten journalists. Shea called it “Operation Erste Saule,” a German term meaning “first pillar,” which Shea used to refer to the news media, according to court documents.
In a message to the group chat, Shea said they would target “journalists houses and media buildings to send a clear message that we too have leverage over them. … The goal of course, is to erode the media/state air of legitimacy by showing people that they have names and addresses, and hopefully embolden others to act as well.”Garza was given the task of coordinating efforts to deliver the threatening fliers to journalists’ homes and workplaces, the plea agreement said.
In the following months, the group accrued the addresses of Jewish journalists and activists and came up with a plan to mail them threatening fliers and deliver them in-person to their homes. Cole designed three posters. One said, “Two can play at this game,” with swastikas between each word, skeletons holding weapons and the words, “Death to pigs.” Other posters read: “Our patience has its limits” and “We are watching. We are no one. We are everyone. We know where you live. Do not f--- with us.”On Jan. 25, Garza and another individual, who is not named in court documents, drove to an apartment complex in Phoenix, where a member of the Arizona Association of Black Journalists lived.
“Garza intended that the poster cause the editor fear of property damage and personal harm,” the plea agreement said. “The editor did in fact become fearful upon discovering the poster.”The same day, other members of the group dropped off or mailed the threatening fliers to people in Florida and Washington state, according to the
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