A Sacramento federal grand jury handed up an indictment against two alleged leaders of a “transnational” white supremacist group — one of them an Elk Grove woman — accused of soliciting their followers on the messaging app Telegram to assassinate federal officials and commit hate crimes, federal prosecutors said Monday.
Matthew Robert Allison of Boise, Idaho, and Dallas Erin Humber, 34, of Elk Grove face 15 counts of charges related to conspiracy of soliciting hate crimes, soliciting the murder of federal officials, doxxing federal officials, distributing information related to explosives and destructive devices and conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists.
Both defendants urged their followers to kill protected classes and develop a so-called “saint culture” by celebrating previous terrorist attackers, said Assistant U.S. Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Their words were consumed by a 19-year-old Slovakia man who shot three people, two of them fatally, at an LGBTQ+ bar in Bratislava, Clark said. The man killed himself while being pursed by police.
“The defendants’ goal, the indictment charges, was to ignite a race war, accelerate the collapse of what they viewed as an irreparably corrupt government and bring about a white ethnostate,” Clarke said during an online news conference.
Allison and Humber joined a messaging group named “The Terrorgram Collective” that aimed to spur a white revolution and domination after the group’s previous leader was arrested, federal prosecutors said. The pair created a digital book called “The Hard Reset” which explained the Terrorgram ideology while providing detailed instructions to making bombs using napalm, thermite, chlorine gas, pipe bombs and dirty bombs, according to the indictment.
Humber created an audiobook version of “The Hard Reset” to disseminate among their followers, the indictment said.
The group created a list of “high-value targets” — which included a U.S. senator, U.S. District Court judge and a former United States Attorney — for assassination. The list included the victims’ home addresses, names and photographs, according to the indictment.
Victims on the so-called “The List” were accompanied by comments such as “Take Action Now” and “Do your part.” It also describes their targets as an “Anti-White, Anti-gun, Jewish Senator” and labels a judge as “an invader” from a foreign country, according to the indictment.
Messages on Telegram spoke crudely of protected classes. In one message, Humber, calling Pride Month “f-- month,” said on June 1, 2023, there are better ways than “fighting back economically,” and listed mass shootings, arsons, bombing and vehicular attacks, according to the indictment.
“What’s more impactful — boycotting Target, or getting dozens of targets in your sights and taking them out permanently?” Humber wrote, according to the indictment. “Actions speak louder than words.”
Along with this message, Humber sent a message showing a photo from the mass shooting at the LGBTQ+ nightclub Pulse that killed 49 people in Orlando, Florida, in June 2016, the indictment said.
Alongside mass casualty attacks, messages on Telegram urged followers to attack critical infrastructure and gave tips for what to expect while preparing for an attack.
The FBI foiled a plot in which an 18-year-old planned to attack two energy facilities in New Jersey, the indictment said. The suspect in the case read content created in the text messaging group, the indictment said.
An attacker and a FBI undercover agent allegedly planned two attacks at two different electrical substations. The 18-year-old told the undercover agent how to attack an substation, learned in part through videos created by Allison describing attack methods, the indictment said.
Another 18-year-old livestreamed himself stabbing give people outside a mosque in Eskisehir, Turkey. Humber said the man referenced the Terrorgram chat and Saint manifestos online.
“But he’s not White so I can’t give him an honorary title,” Humber said. “We still celebrating his attack tho, he did it for Terrorgram.”
Both defendants also created a 24-minute documentary that celebrated 105 white supremacist attacks, according to the indictment.
“After chronicling each of the attacks, the documentary concludes with the message: ‘To the Saints of tomorrow watching this today, know that when you succeed you will be celebrated with reverence and your sacrifice will not be in vain. Hail the Saints and hail our glorious and bloody legacy of white terror.’”
Humber, wearing red and white jail clothing, appeared Monday in federal court in downtown Sacramento for her arraignment after she was booked into the Sacramento County Main Jail last week.
Her attorney, federal public defender Noa Oren, entered not guilty pleas. Humber did not have a reaction to the proceedings other than to nod slightly when U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeremy D. Peterson read the penalties she could face if convicted of all 15 charges. Humber and Allison each face a maximum of 220 years in prison, according to a Department of Justice news release.
After the arraignment, Humbler stiffly adjusted her shackled wrists and hugged Oren. Oren whispered, “You are OK” as both women smiled at each other, before the defendant was escorted away by the U.S. Marshals Service.
Oren declined to comment Monday because she has not yet received the prosecution’s entire discovery.
Attorney General Merrick Garland in a statement Monday called the arrests “a warning that committing hate-fueled crimes in the darkest corners of the internet will not hide you, and soliciting terrorist attacks from behind a screen will not protect you.”
Allison is scheduled to appear for his first court hearing Tuesday in Boise, said U.S. Attorney Phillip Talbert of the Eastern District of California.
Attorneys in Humber’s case will return Friday to discuss the terms surrounding Humber’s detention. She is currently being held without bail.
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