UPDATE: After the publication of this article, McLellan provided the following statement to Headline USA, denying that he was kicked out of the American Front or that he’s cooperated with law enforcement in any fashion:
“You’re talking about a very vague statement made by a prosecutor during my sentencing hearing. This is only to plant the seed in other co-defendants—obviously, hoping to get one of them to flop on each other,” he said.
“At the end of the day, only two of us were convicted in the American Front case—myself and Marcus Faella—and I was able to overturn my conviction. Now, anything else as far as law enforcement goes: No [I don’t cooperate with law enforcement]. I wish the law enforcement agencies much luck in exposing things like child molester, drug dealers and drug dealers—even though I myself formally a drug dealer and user.”
(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Is American Nazi Kent “Boneface” McLellan a CIA-backed freedom fighter, an FBI informant or an attention-seeking blowhard—or all of the above?
That question has been circulating online ever since McLellan was spotted Saturday at the Neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe’s public demonstration in Florida.
Observers were quick to note that McLellan has claimed to have fought for the CIA-backed Azov Battalion in Ukraine, while conservative personality Laura Loomer exposed him for being on an FBI terrorism watchlist—likely due to his 2012 arrested in an FBI counterterrorism sting.
Headline USA can reveal that after the FBI arrested him in 2012, McLellan snitched about his fellow Nazis, who were members of a white nationalist group called the American Front.
“Mr. McLellan cooperated with law enforcement upon his arrested and gave a statement that may be helpful in the prosecution of other individuals involved in the American Front,” said Assistant State Attorney Steven Foster at the Nazi’s Oct. 10, 2012, sentencing hearing.
According to court records, McLellan received four years probation after cooperating against the American Front, which was accused of participating in illegal paramilitary training to prepare for “an inevitable race war.”
The American Front case, which was prosecuted by the state of Florida, largely collapsed after the arrests of 13 subjects. Charges against nine of the 13 defendants were dropped before trial, while McLellan and several others received probation.
American Front’s leader Marcus Faella was the only one of the 13 defendants to go to trial. He was found guilty ontwo counts of paramilitary training, but only received six months in jail after an FBI informant was caught making multiple false statements on the witness stand.
“What was billed as the biggest domestic terrorism case in Florida history was bedeviled by difficulties proving that Faella was not only a guy with abhorrent views—which, of course, is not a crime—but also one who intended to carry out violence based on those views,” the Miami New Times reported at the time.
Even though the American Front case appears to be created out of whole cloth, documents related to the case nevertheless provide biographical details about McLellan, who is now one of the most prominent public faces of the U.S. Neo-Nazi movement.
For instance, McLellan was already a convicted felon and prohibited from owning firearms prior to the American Front case, according to the affidavit of FBI agent Kelly Boaz. McLellan trained with firearms at an American Front compound in Florida, which Boaz said was “clearly a violation of statute and [McLellan’s] probation.”
Boaz’s affidavit also said that McLellan was kicked out of the American Front in 2011.
“McLellan had not made contact with the group for several days and had recently had a run-in with local law enforcement for beating up a local crack dealer and another altercation at a local bar,” Boaz said.
Later, in January 2012, an FBI informant inside the American Front case reported that McLellan had been receiving threats from another white supremacist group, the Confederate Hammerskins.
According to the FBI informant, the leader of the Hammerskins, Richie Meyers, had a meeting with American Front leader Faella, “who agreed McLellan is a problem and needs to be dealt with.”
Faella said McLellan “will at least be sent to the hospital,” the FBI informant reported at the time.
“Various members from the Hammerskins began teaming up with AF members under the direction of Faella to target McLellan,” Boaz’s affidavit said.
Later that month, the Nazis indeed “beat” McLellan for comments he made on Facebook, according to Boaz, who said he obtained a photo of McLellan being treated by paramedics. No charges were filed from that incident, and the Nazi who beat McLellan was made a fully “patched” member of the American Front.
In March 2012, McLellan was allowed back into the American Front, and he was given a secret mission.
“McLellan was tasked by Faella to start hanging around with “SHARPS” (Skin Heads against Racial Prejudice) and act as a double agent,” Boaz said in his affidavit.
“Faella told McLellan he wanted him to lure SHARP members to an undisclosed location for an ambush. McLellan agreed.”
The outcome of McLellan’s undercover mission is unclear. The group was arrested about three months later.
At Faella’s trial, it was further revealed that American Front members viewed McLellan as untrustworthy. Faella’s defense attorney asked the undercover FBI informant whether “there was some question about the veracity of [McLellan’s] statements,” and the informant confirmed that was the case.
The American Front members indeed had reason to view McLellan with suspicion, as he ended up snitching on them.
Less than two years after he received four years probation, McLellan claims to have left the country in 2014 to fight with the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion in Ukraine—a fact that observers, including Loomer, have pointed as smoking-gun evidence that McLellan is a federal asset.
However, whether McLellan actually fought with Azov is unconfirmed. Photos of him allegedly in Ukraine have been revealed as photoshopped, and other soldiers who fought in Ukraine reportedly denied knowing him.
I'm going to say it because no one else seems to be able to have any verification on this guy, Kent Mclellan aka Boneface Is either a poser or purposely lying that he served in Azov etc, I've known of him for a while through the very social channels that have posted about him. My… pic.twitter.com/3Asi6WSSgh
— COSSACKGUNDI (@cossackgundi) September 4, 2023
Additionally, the newly appointed, American transgender spokesperson for the Territorial Defense Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces denied McLellan’s claim that he received Ukrainian citizenship.
Kent McLellan (Boneface) does not have Ukrainian citizenship.
— Sarah Ashton-Cirillo (Ukrainian TDF Media) (@SarahAshtonLV) September 4, 2023
McLellan was questioned about the dubious aspects of his story Tuesday night on the white nationalist talkshow, Killstream.
The Neo-Nazi said he has Ukrainian government documents to prove that he fought there. When asked about the doctored images of him circulating online, he claimed that the photoshopping was done for “opsec” reasons—apparently so Russia wouldn’t know exactly where he was taking the photos.
As for his probation, McLellan said he appealed that punishment, which is why he was allowed to leave the country. His court docket indeed shows that his probation status hearings were continuously postponed and rescheduled throughout 2014.
McLellan was then hit with a probation violation in 2016 for domestic assault, but that case was inexplicably dropped.
“This case is not suitable for prosecution,” State Attorney Jeffrey Ashton told a judge in June 2016, offering no other information.
McLellan was arrested yet again in 2017 for dealing meth. He was sentenced to nearly 50 months imprisonment.
Despite that, McLellan claims to have returned to Ukraine yet again in January 2022, right before Russia’s invasion. He returned later that year and provided several interviews about his purported experiences, which were amplified by Russian state media to highlight how the U.S. is supporting Nazis in Ukraine.
To McLellan’s point, police body camera footage released by Loomer does appear to suggest that he at least visited Ukraine in 2022.
The body cam footage stems from McLellan being arrested in April 2022 for felony battery. The footage shows police typing McLellan’s name into a database, and seeing an FBI terrorist alert and a Customs and Border Patrol alert.
“Are you from Ukraine?” the officer asked McLellan, to which he responded, “I just got back from there.”
A police report from McLellan’s arrest further stated that he told officers he “killed Russians” while in Ukraine.
🚨🚨🚨MUST WATCH🚨🚨🚨🚨
EXCLUSIVE VIDEO:
I have exclusively obtained Video evidence and police body camera footage of a police officer in Escambia County, FL by the name of Deputy K. Haley, badge number 614272 interacting with CIA/FBI Nazi Asset and Azov Battalion fighter… https://t.co/LcPsWQ3L8Y pic.twitter.com/6uwzK6JyPz
— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) September 4, 2023
Like the earlier 2016 assault charge, the 2022 battery charge was dropped, too, this time because the victim declined to prosecute. McLellan had filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the victim had threatened him with a baseball bat before the Nazi assaulted him.
McLellan did not respond to media inquiries Headline USA sent him on Twitter and Telegram.
Christopher “Hammer” Pohlhaus, the leader of the Nazi group that demonstrated in Florida, said that McLellan is not yet a full-fledged member of his group, the Blood Tribe. Pohlhaus said his group is holding a “public trial” of McLellan to examine the truthfulness of his claims.
“He was a prospect, You have to do at least 2 rallies to be in Blood Tribe,” Pohlhaus told Headline USA.
“We are doing a public trial of Boneface [McLellan] and diving deep into everything soon. I’m not going to give my official take on any of this until it’s done but there are certainly concerning issues about Boneface,” Pohlhaus added.
“That being said, there are also a lot of great qualities of the man, and I think he is being truthful about his time in Ukraine. We will get to the bottom of it all.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
