An FBI sting operation resulted in the arrest of a Virginia White supremacists duo plotting to attack synagogues and Black churches. The guys were busted trying to purchase weapons and explosives from undercover agents in preparation for a “race war.”
Reports AP:
Robert C. Doyle and Ronald Beasley Chaney III tried to buy an automatic weapon, explosives and a pistol with a silencer from three undercover agents posing as illegal firearms dealers, FBI agent James R. Rudisill wrote in an affidavit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Richmond.
Doyle, 34, and Chaney, 33, are charged with conspiracy to possess firearms after being convicted of felonies, according to the affidavit.
An associate, 30-year-old Charles D. Halderman, is accused of plotting to rob a jeweler and use the money to help Doyle buy land and stockpile weapons for “an impending race war,” the affidavit says. He is charged with a robbery conspiracy.
According to Rudisill’s affidavit, Doyle and the younger Chaney “ascribe to a white supremacy extremist version of the Asatru faith,” a pagan sect that emphasizes Norse gods and traditions. The affidavit says the FBI learned that Doyle planned to host a meeting at his home in late September to discuss “shooting or bombing the occupants of black churches and Jewish synagogues, conducting acts of violence against persons of Jewish faith, and doing harm to a gun store owner in the state of Oklahoma.”
The transaction was completed Sunday, and Chaney was arrested on the spot. Doyle was arrested later that day and, according to the affidavit, admitted that he and Chaney arranged for the gun purchase.
Police executed a search warrant at Doyle’s home and recovered more than 30 rounds of .45-caliber ammunition from his truck, the affidavit says. One of the guns Doyle ordered was a .45-caliber pistol with a silencer.
All three defendants have multiple felony convictions, according to the FBI’s affidavit.
Black churches have historically been targeted in racist attacks. The act that has gotten more rampant since the shooting tragedy at South Carolina’s Mother Emmanuel AME Church in June.
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Photo: Richmond-Times Dispatch
