A man accused of traveling to Plantation to “scout” out a pro-Israel nonprofit with the intent to return with a gun is facing a federal hate crime charge nearly two years later, court records say.

Forrest Kendall Pemberton, 27, of Gainesville, was initially charged by a federal indictment early last year with one count of stalking and one count of possession of a short-barreled rifle.

Pemberton has now been charged by a superseding indictment in the same case, Amy Soto, Public Affairs Officer for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, said in an email Thursday night.

He faces charges of attempted hate crime, using and carrying a firearm during a crime of violence and possession of a short-barreled rifle.

On Dec. 23, 2024, Pemberton’s father called authorities to report his son had disappeared from their family home in Gainesville in the middle of the night, according to a criminal complaint filed in South Florida’s federal court system.

Pemberton’s family found a letter they believed he wrote, which “espoused anti-authority sentiments” and in which he said “goodbye” to his family. An AR-15 in a case, a pistol and another rifle were missing from Pemberton’s room, along with his personal laptop, the complaint said.

The family also looked at Pemberton’s personal desktop computer and found searches “for various entities and their respective physical addresses,” the complaint said, including a nonprofit with an address on South Pine Island Road in Plantation that described itself as an advocacy and lobbying organization for “pro-Israel policies that strengthen and expand the U.S.-Israel relationship.” Pemberton had visited the organization’s website, the “about us” section and the section about working there.

Screenshots the family shared with authorities showed Pemberton searched Google Maps for a former address of the nonprofit and a direct route from his home address to that location in Plantation. The nonprofit at the time had moved to a different address in Plantation, according to investigators, but the former address can still be found online when searching for the organization.

Investigators using internet IP addresses found that Pemberton had checked into a hotel in Plantation on Dec. 22 that was within two miles of the nonprofit’s former address and checked out on Dec. 23. On Dec. 24, Pemberton was tracked to another hotel in Tallahassee, the complaint said.

Law enforcement surveilled Pemberton on Dec. 25 as he got into a ride-share car, carrying what appeared to be a rifle case, according to the complaint. They pulled over the ride-share car, and Pemberton handed over three guns — an AR-15, the rifle and the pistol, as well as ammo for the AR-15 and pistol.

In an interview before his arrest, Pemberton told law enforcement officers that he walked from Gainesville to Ocala, where he bought a a Ford F-150 for $400 before traveling to the nonprofit’s former address in Plantation, according to the complaint. He told authorities he believed it was the current address.

Pemberton in his interview said he went to the office unarmed to “scout” it, “with the intent to confirm access” to the building and “return to the location with firearms concealed,” the investigating FBI special agent wrote in the complaint.

Authorities asked Pemberton if he would have carried out a mass casualty event and planned to kill himself afterward.

“Um, I really don’t know if I was gonna end it with my life or not,” he replied, according to the complaint. “I hadn’t gotten that far yet. It entirely depended if I ended up getting caught or not. If caught, that was a way out.”

He told authorities he had the guns for multiple purposes, according to the complaint, including potentially selling them, “but otherwise they can be used for criminal intent if I wanted to, which was my intention, such as harming another individual,” Pemberton said, according to the complaint.

Pemberton said he chose the Plantation nonprofit because of its “political influence” and its location with his motive being frustrated with the “status quo” and “see[ing] if I could make a change,” according to the complaint. He allegedly said he considered targeting members of the organization but did not because “it would have been a one-way ticket, in Plantation, I decided I wasn’t ready. I gave up.”

He is held in the Paul Rein Detention Facility as of Friday.

Pemberton faces a maximum life sentence on the attempted hate crime charge, a mandatory consecutive, maximum sentence of 30 years for the gun charge and up to five years for the possession count, prosecutors said.