Cameron Shea, 25, a leader of the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division, was sentenced to three years in prison for federal conspiracy and hate crime charges for threatening journalists and advocates who worked to expose anti-Semitism.
Shea pleaded guilty in April 2021, to one count of conspiring to commit three offenses against the United States: interference with federally-protected activities because of religion; mailing threatening communications; and cyberstalking. He also pleaded guilty to one count of interfering with a federally protected activity because of religion.
In 2020, Johnny Roman Garza, was sentenced to 16 months in prison for his role in the group’s plot to threaten and intimidate journalists. Garza placed a poster on the bedroom window of an editor at local Jewish magazine. The poster depicted a figure in a skull mask holding a Molotov cocktail in front of a burning home, along with the warning “You have been visited by your local Nazis.”
Garza also stopped at the apartment complex where a member of the Arizona Association of Black Journalists lived, but reportedly could not find a place to put the poster.
Shea and three co-defendants were charged with conspiring via an encrypted online chat group to identify journalists and advocates they wanted to threaten in retaliation for the victims’ work exposing anti-Semitism. The group focused primarily on those who are Jewish or journalists of color. The group created posters, which featured Nazi symbols, masked figures with guns and Molotov cocktails and threatening messages, to deliver or mail to the journalists or advocates the group targeted.
Shea messaged the group that he wanted Atomwaffen members in different locations to place posters on their victims’ homes on the same night to catch journalists off guard and accomplish a “show of force.”