
It was June 9, and Frederick Thomas believed he was meeting with a dealer in black market weapons at a Lavonia restaurant, according to FBI affidavits. . . . . Neither Thomas nor his colleague, 67-year-old Dan "Cobra" Roberts, knew the arms dealer was an undercover informant for the FBI.
A story grew clearer Wednesday through federal affidavits, interviews and court statements accusing Thomas, Roberts and two other men -- Ray H. Adams, 65, and Samuel J. Crump, 68 -- of planning to unleash the toxic agent ricin across Atlanta and other major U.S. cities, bomb federal buildings and take innocent lives. Documents say the men intended to launch their plot within a year.
It was a plan based on a novel by Mike Vanderboegh, a former militia leader and blogger, that detailed killing Justice Department attorneys, Thomas said, according to the FBI affidavits.
FBI documents allege that beginning in March and as recently as last week, the men -- whom federal officials have not identified as part of a larger militia -- met at their homes and North Georgia restaurants. Some had made trips to Atlanta federal buildings to conduct reconnaissance. The affidavits describe Thomas and Roberts as working to obtain explosive devices and silencers, while Adams and Crump seemed largely tasked with developing ricin, a toxin that can be fatal if inhaled or ingested, from easily obtained castor beans.
Documents allege that Crump planned to disperse the ricin in various U.S. cities including Atlanta, Newark, N.J., and Washington. In Atlanta, the documents said, the plan was to unleash the powdery substance on I-285, I-75 and U.S. 41.
These people are scary. What's even more scary is that there are many more of them out there being motivated by the hate speech of the far right (e.g., Rush Limbaugh) and the Christian Right.
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