US Marine plotted mass shooting at synagogue

The unnamed Marine was the boyfriend of Riley Williams, who is pending trial for her role in the January 6 Capitol riot – which is how the revelation came about. 

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A motion filed Friday in a case related to the Capitol riots last year has revealed a plot to conduct a mass slaughter of Jews at prayer that led to a U.S. Marine’s arrest and jailing, Pennsylvania’s Patriot-News reported.

The revelation came in the U.S. Attorney’s office, where the judge was asked not to loosen the parole conditions of Riley Williams. Williams is pending trial for her role in the January 6 riot, during which she allegedly egged on protestors who had broken into the Capitol building and stole House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s laptop.

According to the Patriot-News report, prosecutor Maria Fedor wrote in the motion that Williams broke the conditions of her house arrest in several ways over the past year. This included meeting last August with a former American soldier who was identified as a boyfriend.

The unnamed Marine was a former felon who “stole his roommates’ truck and attempted to purchase a firearm with the intent of committing a mass shooting at a synagogue,” the motion stated. He was given a dishonorable discharge and served 19 months in prison for his actions, it continued.

No other details of the incident were revealed.

Williams reportedly lied to probation officers about the meeting, saying that a cousin was going to visit her in her mother’s home, which she is rarely allowed to leave. She has also been in video contact with the man, even though she is only allowed video calls to her lawyer or mental health services.

Williams knew his background, according to the motion, because the ex-Marine had told her about the circumstances of his arrest and conviction.

The 23-year-old suspected rioter is allegedly a far-right extremist who supports Nazi ideology. Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group, found several posts of hers online where she poses in a skull-mask that is popular among neo-Nazis.

According to an article on its website some seven weeks after the riots, Williams had accounts on Twitter and Parler that incorporated the word “Groyper,” a name that fans had bestowed on Nick Fuentes, a political commentator whom the Anti-Defamation League has described as a white supremacist.  According to Bellingcat, she espoused a similar ideology on her since-deleted Twitter account.

AntisemitismCapitol riotGun violenceMarinesNeo-Nazissynagogue attacks