The leader of a white supremacist group who admitted posting an online death threat targeting a Brooklyn journalist in a bid to silence coverage of the group was sentenced to around three and a half years in prison on Friday, federal prosecutors said.
The white supremacist, Nicholas Welker, was sentenced to 44 months in federal prison after pleading guilty in September to conspiring to make interstate threats, prosecutors said. At the time of the threat, which he posted in an online public forum in August 2021, he was the leader of Feuerkrieg Division, a neo-Nazi hate group, prosecutors said.
Mr. Welker, 33, of San Jose, Calif., issued the threat by posting a photograph of the journalist, whom prosecutors did not identify, with an image of a gun aimed at the person’s head and the words “race traitor” plastered over the person’s eyes, prosecutors said.
The post included the name of the journalist and the person’s employer as well as the phrase “Responsible for stalking our boys for information,” according to a criminal complaint.
Mr. Welker, who is also known as “King ov Wrath,” also used an expletive in his threat while demanding that the reporter stop reporting on Feuerkrieg Division and wrote “YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED,” prosecutors said.
Two underage members of Mr. Welker’s group sent the post directly to a social media account maintained by the journalist to ensure that the journalist saw it, prosecutors said.
Mr. Welker’s goal was to “silence” the journalist so that Mr. Welker’s “fellow extremists could continue to commit violence against racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, and the LGBTQ+ community,” Breon Peace, the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, said in a statement.
“We will stand up for them and other journalists who bravely report on these violent hate groups,” Mr. Peace added.
Michael Daniel Weil, a lawyer with the Federal Defenders of New York who is representing Mr. Welker, declined to comment.
Feuerkrieg Division, which translates to “War Fire,” is an international extremist group that encourages its members to attack racial minorities, Jews, L.G.B.T. people, the U.S. government, journalists, and “critical infrastructure,” prosecutors said.
Feuerkrieg Division is an offshoot of Atomwaffen, which law enforcement authorities consider among the most violent extremist groups in the country.
