A federal prosecutor warned of a “credible threat” to national security heading into the Fourth of July weekend as she convinced a judge Tuesday to detain a Chicago man accused of playing some role in an alleged plot on the Ultimate Fighting Championship event held at the White House.
A full picture of the role allegedly played by Alexander Iniguez Mercado, 20, has yet to emerge. Assistant U.S. Attorney Elly Moheb argued that’s by Mercado’s design, after he deleted the messaging application Signal from his phone, leading to obstruction of justice charges.
But Mercado’s defense attorney told a judge that Mercado has spoken with the FBI three times, and that he even tried to re-install Signal in an unsuccessful bid to recover any messages that were destroyed when he deleted the encrypted app.
He said Mercado is a LARPer, which refers to “live action role play,” and is “not interested in any sort of plot” on the event that took place June 14, on President Donald Trump’s birthday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel Fuentes concluded that the allegations against Mercado were serious enough that he should be held in custody.
Anticipating Mercado would ask to be released into his mother’s custody, the judge pointed to allegations that Mercado hit his mother in the head five times last fall. The incident led to a now-dismissed battery case, Moheb told the judge.
The judge called the LARPer argument “very interesting, thought provoking and intriguing.”
But, he said, it “did not reduce the risk enough for me as the judicial officer on a detention motion so that I could be allowed to find that the government had fallen short of its clear-and-convincing evidence burden.”
Moheb said there’s data showing Mercado deleted Signal from his phone “within minutes” of a June 13 call from an FBI special agent, but Mercado allegedly claimed he uninstalled the app later, at his mother’s direction.
“That does suggest a level of dishonesty,” Fuentes said.
Mercado’s two-hour detention hearing at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse also revealed additional details about the alleged plot on the UFC event. Moheb told the judge that Mercado “recruited other individuals” into a Signal messaging group and would “vet” them to determine if they should be allowed in. He allegedly told someone that “peace ain’t the option.”
When someone mentioned having a sniper rifle and asked for targets, Mercado allegedly wrote on March 1, “I do have some people in mind. Look I just need you to be patient until the time is right but we can really make history.”
Still, defense attorney Johanathan Brooks told the judge, “this is essentially something you could read in a Tom Clancy novel. This is not real.” He said the Signal group was about “survivalism,” and there’s “no indication that Mr. Mercado had joined in on this plan.”
Mercado told the FBI “everything he knows,” Brooks said.
Federal prosecutors have charged at least seven others in connection with the alleged plot to attack the UFC event. It involved a plan to deploy drones armed with explosives into the event to force an evacuation, allowing snipers to open fire on “high value targets,” Justice Department officials have claimed.
Moheb pointed to evidence Tuesday that it might have been a precursor to additional attacks leading up to the Fourth of July. She argued that most people involved in the planning are still at large, with the nation’s 250th anniversary coming up in a matter of days.
“The government believes that the defendant can contribute to that credible threat,” Moheb said.
The indictment against Mercado, made public last week, does not actually allege he participated in the planning. Rather, it said the FBI “obtained information” that he was a “member and an administrator” of Signal messaging groups where people “appeared to communicate with others” about the attack.
Then, on June 13, an FBI special agent called Mercado “to discuss threats made online” about the event and asked Mercado whether he planned to travel to the nation’s capital to help with the attack, according to the indictment.
Mercado allegedly denied it and said he did not want to meet with the agent.
“After a brief conversation, the call was disconnected,” the indictment said.
The FBI agent apparently reached out to Mercado again to set up an interview, according to the indictment. It said Mercado “did not initially respond.”
Mercado is then accused of uninstalling Signal from his phone between June 13 and June 14, the day of the UFC event. Uninstalling the application deletes the user’s messages, the indictment said.