(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The Justice Department announced charges Monday against two people who prosecutors say were motivated by white supremacist ideology. According to the DOJ, they used the social media messaging app Telegram to encourage acts of violence against minorities, government officials and critical infrastructure in the United States.
The defendants, Dallas Erin Humber and Matthew Robert Allison, face 15 federal counts in the Eastern District of California, including charges that accuse them of soliciting hate crimes and the murder of federal officials, distributing bomb-making instructions and conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.
Humber, 34, of Elk Grove, California, and Allison, 37, of Boise, Idaho were arrested Friday.
“The defendants solicited murders and hate crimes based on the race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, and gender identity of others,” said U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert for the Eastern District of California.
“They also doxed and solicited the murder of federal officials, conspired to provide material support to terrorists, and distributed information about explosives that they intended to be used in committing crimes of violence.
And so it begins. DOJ just charged 2 men with using Telegram to espouse violence, promote "white supremacy" and incite a race war. pic.twitter.com/csKv0Jun1M
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) September 9, 2024
Humber was previously outed last year by the Huffington Post, which also revealed that the woman was a dildo salesperson.
The indictment accuses the two of leading a transnational group known as “Terrorgram” that operates on Telegram and espouses white supremacist ideology and violence to its follows.
“Humber and Allison, as leaders of the Terrorgram Collective, contributed to and disseminated several Terrorgram videos and publications that provide specific advice for carrying out crimes, celebrate white supremacist attacks, and provide a hit list of ‘high-value targets’ for assassination,” the DOJ said in a press release.
Justice Department officials say they used the app to transmit bomb-making instructions, to distribute a list of potential targets for assassination — including a federal judge, a senator and a former U.S. attorney — and to celebrate people accused in prior acts or plots of violence, such as the stabbing last month of five people outside a mosque in Turkey and the July arrest of an 18-year-old accused of planning to attack an electrical substation to advance white supremacist views.
The substation attack looks to be a plot heavily driven by the FBI. The indictment against the 18-year-old defendant, Andrew Takhistov, revealed that an undercover FBI agent drove him around as they plotted substation attacks, and that the undercover agent even agreed to assault someone.
This incredibly dubious looking case was cited in today's Terrorgram indictment https://t.co/4bQcfEqLlD
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) September 9, 2024
The pair’s exhortations to their follows to commit violence included statements such as “Take Action Now” and “Do your part,” according to an indictment unsealed Monday.
Humber and Allison each face a maximum penalty of 220 years in prison.
The founder and CEO of Telegram, Pavel Durov, was detained by French authorities last month on charges of allowing the platform’s use for criminal activity. Durov responded to the charges by saying he shouldn’t have been targeted personally.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
