A San Jose neo-Nazi who calls himself “King ov Wrath” was sentenced to 3½ years in federal prison for threats against a journalist.
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Nicholas Welker, 33, was the leader of Feuerkrieg Division, which prosecutors characterized as a “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist group.”
He was arrested in San Jose in March 2023 and accused of posting a threat in a public online forum: It had an image of a gun aimed at the Brooklyn-based journalist, whom prosecutors did not identify. It named the journalist and his employer, labeled him a “race traitor” and said he was being warned to stop reporting on Feuerkrieg.
Two underage members of the hate group then sent the threat directly to the journalist’s Twitter account.
Welker was charged with conspiring to make threatening statements, which has a maximum sentence of five years. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced on Friday, April 19, to 44 months in prison, said Breon Peace, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
Last year, after his arraignment, Welker’s attorneys asked that he be released to a San Jose residential drug treatment program while the case was proceeding, but the judge sided with prosecutors, who said he posed a danger to the community as well as a flight risk.