A neo-Nazi leader who plotted to kill children he described as \u201cracial minorities and traitors\u201d by having someone dressed as Santa Claus hand out poisoned candy in New York City was sentenced on Wednesday to 15 years in federal prison.<\/p>\n
The man, Michail Chkhikvishvili, 22, a Georgian citizen known as Commander Butcher, was the leader of Maniac Murder Cult, an international extremist group that encouraged people to commit acts of hate and violence, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said Mr. Chkhikvishvili inspired a school shooting<\/a> in Nashville last year, the stabbing of five people<\/a> near a mosque in Turkey in 2024 and the murder of a 74-year-old woman in Romania in 2022. He insisted that his followers record their attacks to prove they were successful and to promote Maniac Murder Cult online, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n In the case of the shooting in Nashville, in which a 17-year-old student at Antioch High School fatally shot another student and then killed himself, the attacker mentioned Mr. Chkhikvishvili by name in his writings, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n Since 2021, Mr. Chkhikvishvili had updated and published successive editions of the \u201cHater\u2019s Handbook,\u201d which encouraged people to carry out school shootings and gave them suggestions on how to commit mass murder, including by targeting crowded outdoor events, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n The poisoned candy plot emerged in late 2023 when Mr. Chkhikvishvili sent an undercover F.B.I. agent, whom he believed to be a potential Maniac Murder Cult recruit, \u201cstep-by-step instructions\u201d on how to carry out the attack, prosecutors wrote in court documents.<\/p>\n Mr. Chkhikvishvili suggested lacing candy with ricin, a poison, and having someone dressed as Santa hand it out on New Year\u2019s Eve in New York to children he described as \u201cracial minorities and traitors,\u201d prosecutors wrote.<\/p>\n On Jan. 9, 2024, Mr. Chkhikvishvili suggested that the undercover agent give poisoned candy to the \u201cJewish community\u201d on \u201csome Jewish holiday\u201d at \u201cJewish schools full of kids,\u201d prosecutors wrote.<\/p>\n