fbpx

Vegas Man Who Allegedly Wanted to Attack Synagogue Pleads Guilty to Possessing Bomb-Making Parts

[additional-authors]
February 12, 2020
Photo from Public Domain Pictures.

A Las Vegas man pled guilty on Feb. 10 to possessing bomb-making components in order to bomb a synagogue, attack the Las Vegas Anti-Defamation League (ADL) headquarters and conduct a shooting at an LGTBQ bar, federal authorities said.

Conor Climo, 24, pled guilty to charges of possessing materials to make an explosive device and to the charge of possessing an unregistered firearm. He also admitted to being a member of the Feuerkrieg Division, an international neo-Nazi group that calls for violence against its perceived enemies and is an offshoot of the Atomwaffen Division. According to the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism (COE), Atomwaffen “has been implicated in five murders nationwide.”

Additionally, Climo admitted to being in contact with an FBI informant on an encrypted online chat in which he communicated his plans with the informant, according to the Associated Press. He was initially arrested in August.

Climo is scheduled to be sentenced on May 14; he could face up to 10 years in prison. He will also undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

According to the COE, Climo reportedly told the informant that he wanted to utilize “an eight-man sniper platoon for a shooting attack targeting Jews” as well as “a Molotov cocktail to set fire to a synagogue.” Additionally, Climo had July 2018 chats on Discord, an internet chat platform for video gamers, that read, “F— The K— Laws” and “St. Roof did nothing wrong.” “St. Roof” is an apparent reference to Dylann Roof, who was sentenced to death in 2017 in the shooting deaths of nine African Americans at a prayer service in Charleston, S.C., in 2015.

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted, “Our team at @ADL’s Center on Extremism warned law enforcement about the suspected neo-Nazi’s online activity & provided them background on the neo-Nazi group he allegedly belonged to.”

Did you enjoy this article?
You'll love our roundtable.

Editor's Picks

Latest Articles

‘NAZA’ Proves Nada

“Naza” is not successful on any level as a documentary, but if judged on awards, and getting people who were already angry angrier, it very well may be.

The Virtues of Fresh Salads

After weeks of holiday feasting and heavy meals, the new Jewish year is a perfect time to reset, to nourish our bodies with food that is wholesome and still tastes delicious.

On Oct. 7, Reflections on Remembrance

Even as we mourn everything we’ve lost, let us also remember the moments of hope and healing — moments that restore our faith in humanity’s promise.

The Other Shoe

I stood there in awe, my eyes blurring with tears, listening to the hush and experiencing the unnamed. I couldn’t tell which was stranger: feeling the rainforest in me, or me in the rainforest. And then my phone rang.

A New Graphic Novel Re-Presents the Bible

Following on the heels of his earlier presentations of the Passover Haggadah and the books of Esther and Jonah, Gorfinkel, known to his friends as “Gorf,” along with Israeli illustrator Yael Nathan and a team of specialized artists, have produced “The Koren Magerman Tanakh Graphic Novel: Bereshit Vol. 1,” which renders the first two Torah portions in Genesis, Bereshit and Noah, in dynamically engaging visual narrative form.

Flydubai Flight FZ1073 and the Indomitability of the Jews

FZ1073 has a message for the world. For the terrorists striving to take innumerable Israeli lives and make the survivors’ lives unbearable, the message is that your love of death will never diminish our love of life nor make us any less determined to defend it.

Achievement, Relationship, Purpose

A career becomes more rewarding when it supports rather than consumes the rest of life. Wealth becomes more meaningful when it creates security and enables generosity.

Oct. 7 Haunts the Campus

Students like me have come to understand that pro-Israel students being othered is the new campus normal. It shouldn’t be.

My Three Sons

I just completed a project I started in November 2023: taking each of my three sons on vacation separately.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.