TENNESSEE
A former right-wing Congressional candidate from Tennessee was charged with hiring another person to burn down a mosque in Islamberg, a hamlet in Hancock, New York, according to officials.
A federal grand jury in Knoxville, Tennessee, returned a one-count indictment charging Robert Doggart, 63, with soliciting another person to violate federal civil rights laws by burning down the mosque.
Doggart ran for Tennessee’s Fourth Congressional district seat in 2014 as a conservative independent. He preached ‘the protection of the American people, land, and our form of government by the professional military establishment’ and received about six percent of the vote, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Doggart’s plans included burning a mosque, a school and a cafeteria in the community, and he solicited others to join in his plan through Facebook posts and in telephone conversations, according to authorities.
Doggart has been charged with one count of soliciting others to violate federal civil rights laws by intentionally defacing, damaging or destroying any religious property, because of the religious character of that property, or attempting to do so.
If convicted, Doggart faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, officials stated.
Doggart is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Doggart posted on Facebook: “Our small group will soon be faced with the fight of our lives. We will offer those lives as collateral to prove our commitment to our God,” Doggart said in a Facebook post, according to court documents. “We shall be Warriors who will inflict horrible numbers of casualties upon the enemies of our Nation and World Peace.”
Doggart was arrested April 10 by the FBI on charges that he solicited others to violate civil rights, attempted to damage religious property because of the religious character of the property and made threats through interstate communication, according to Heavy.com
Two weeks later, Doggart pleaded guilty to interstate communication of threats, Heavy reported.
Doggart said in conversations with an FBI informant and on wiretapped phone calls that his goal wasn’t to go to the Islamberg community to kill anyone, but to burn down buildings and send a message. But he wasn’t afraid of getting into a gun fight, according to Heavy.
“If there’s a gun fight, well there’s a gun fight. And I want to come home ’cause I love my family and I want to see my kids again. But I also understand that if it’s necessary to die then that’s a good way to die,” Doggart said during a March phone conversation with an unnamed militia member from South Carolina, according to Heavy.
The Signal Mountain, Tennessee resident said in a recorded phone call that, “When we meet with this state, the people that we seek will know who we are. We will be cruel to them. And we will burn down their buildings.” He said if anybody attempts to “harm them in any way, “our standoff gunner will take them down from 350 yards. The standoff gunner would be me.”