Friday’s sentence of a former soldier in the U.S. Army for plotting a “murderous attack” on troops overseas was 45 years.
Eric Melzer, a Kentucky 24-year-old, shared information regarding the location and layout of a sensitive U.S. military facility with the violent, antigovernment neoNazi group Order of Nine Angles. In June 20020, he was arrested and pleaded guilty to the charges in 2022.
Federal prosecutors claimed that Melzer wanted to incite a jihadist terrorist attack on his unit and any other that took its place to undercut the United States abroad. This was to further O9A’s goals, a largely United Kingdom-based organization that sympathizes with al Qaeda.
Audrey Strauss, then-Acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, stated that Melzer “allegedly tried to orchestrate a killing ambush on himself unit by unlawfully revealing their location, strength and armaments, to a neo–Nazi, white supremacist, group.”
She claimed that he was motivated to act racistally.
Melzer was found guilty of trying to kill U.S. military personnel, providing and attempting support to terrorists, as well as illegally transmitting national defense information.
Jonathan Marvinny, defense attorney, said via email that “He isn’t the unrepentant monster that the Court and the prosecutors portray him to be.” He deserved to be punished, but he also deserved an opportunity to show that he could make a difference in his own life. He was denied that chance today.
Marvinny and Melzer’s two defense attorneys argued that Melzer should be sentenced to 15 years plus 10 years supervised release in a sentencing memo.
Melzer was described in the memo as a victim of neglect, abuse, and a troubled home. He found himself “in thrall” to a bizarre, satanic religion and doubled down when he was placed under Covid-19 lockdown 2020 at base.
According to Friday’s Justice Department statement, Melzer was accused of being involved in the group since 2017. He then joined the U.S. Army to assist O9A infiltrating its ranks the following year.
Prosecutors said that Melzer was a member the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team and deployed to Italy in 2019. They claim that Melzer then ate propaganda from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIS, and increased his extremism.
The Justice Department stated that Melzer had subscribed to encrypted forums, where he downloaded and accessed videos showing jihadist attacks against U.S. troops and facilities as well as jihadist executions civilians and soldiers.
Prosecutors said that he was informed in 2020 that his unit would be guarding a sensitive military facility overseas and that he had to transmit location, schedule, and security information to O9A, also known as the “RapeWaffen Division” subgroup.
Melzer and O9A also passed this information on to a purported member al Qaeda to “maximize” the chance of an attack on his unit, or future units at that location, according to the Justice Department.
In a previous statement, the Justice Department stated that the defendant believed he could cause the U.S. to enter prolonged armed conflict while also causing as many deaths as possible.
Prosecutors said that the plot was foiled by the FBI and the U.S. Army in 2020.
O9A has been active in the United States, Italy and Brazil for many decades. It has also promoted terrorism and sexual violence. Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right, U.K.
The group has been a source for inspiration for white supremacists in violent ways in recent years, Brian Levin, a California State University security expert, stated in 2020.
He said that the “glorifications of violence and mysticism have found an international audience”
