Second neo-Nazi pleads guilty to threats against journalists

Taylor Parker-Dipeppe admitted to a federal conspiracy charge Monday morning during a court hearing in Seattle.

K5 NBC News, Washington/September 21, 2020

Seattle — A 20-year-old Florida resident is the second member of a violent neo-Nazi group to plead guilty in a plot to intimate minorities and journalists, including a King 5 reporter.

Taylor Parker-Dipeppe admitted to a federal conspiracy charge during a hearing in United States District Court in Seattle Monday morning.

Parker-Dipeppe was a member of The Atomwaffen Division, which boasted a small number of members in several states including Washington.

Court documents say Parker-Dipeppe and another Florida Atomwaffen member planned to deliver a hateful poster to the home of a journalist of Puerto Rican descent in Tampa, as part of a coordinated harassment campaign.

The feds say Parker-Dipeppe mistakenly affixed a poster to the wrong home.

Parker-Dipeppe faces a maximum five years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced at a later date.

Parker-Dipeppe is the latest in a series of Atomwaffen members to admit to their crimes after a nationwide crackdown by the FBI.

A co-defendant, Johnny Roman Garza of Arizona, pleaded guilty to a similar conspiracy charge on Sept. 8 for attempting to place threatening posters at the homes of a Black journalist and the editor of a Jewish publication.

Two other co-defendants from Washington, Brandon Cameron Shea of Redmond and Kaleb Cole of Arlington, are awaiting trial.

In July, John Cameron Denton of Texas admitted to "swatting" journalists and a White House cabinet official.  Denton admitted he made fake 911 calls that appeared to come from home addresses of his victims, spurring police SWAT team responses.

In April, Atomwaffen member Aiden Bruce-Umbaugh, formerly of Olympia, was sentenced to 2.5 years in federal prison on a gun crime.

The Atomwaffen Division professes allegiance not only to Adolph Hitler but also the late mass-murder Charles Manson, according to the group’s online videos.

In a series of reports, the King 5 Investigators showed how the group trained with firearms near Concrete, Washington in a so-called “hate camp” that brought members in from across the country.

King 5 reporter Chris Ingalls was one of the journalists targeted by the group. Shea allegedly mailed Ingalls a letter that said “Death To Pigs” and “you have been visited by your local nazis.”

Atomwaffen patriarch James Mason previously claimed the group had disbanded after the FBI’s arrests.

However, King 5’s sister station in Denver found that Mason had simply “re-branded” Atomwaffen into a new group called The National Socialist Order.