{"id":43062,"date":"2025-11-17T23:50:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T23:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/43062\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T23:50:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T23:50:09","slug":"neo-nazi-leader-admits-to-nyc-hate-crime-plots-including-posing-as-santa-to-poison-minority-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/43062\/","title":{"rendered":"Neo-Nazi leader admits to NYC hate crime plots, including posing as Santa to poison minority kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

A neo-Nazi leader who wrote a manifesto called the \u201cHaters Handbook\u201d pleaded guilty in Brooklyn Monday to spearheading a bizarre murder plot<\/a> to dress as Santa and give poison candy to minority children on New Year\u2019s Eve.<\/p>\n

Michael Chkhikvishvili, 22, a citizen of Georgia, ran the Russian and Ukrainian \u201cManiac Murder Cult\u201d hate group and went by the nickname \u201cCommander Butcher.\u201d He was busted last year<\/a> for trying to solicit someone who turned out to be an undercover agent into taking part in murder, bombing and arson plots.<\/p>\n

On Monday, he pleaded guilty to soliciting violent felonies and distributing bomb-making information. He could get 14 to 17\u00bd years in prison, based on federal guidelines, when he\u2019s sentenced March 9.<\/p>\n

The suspect\u2019s group, which goes by the initials MKY, \u201cadheres to a neo-Nazi accelerationist ideology and promotes violence and violent acts against racial minorities, the Jewish community and other groups it deems \u2018undesirables,\u2019\u201d according to a criminal complaint.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI used internet platforms to communicate with another person \u2026 to try to persuade him to commit violent hate crimes,\u201d he told Brooklyn Federal Court Magistrate Judge Vera Scanlon. \u201cI distributed information about making bombs over the internet \u2026 I acted intentionally and take full responsibility for my actions, and I\u2019d like to apologize to these communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The FBI agent started chatting with Chkhikvishvili last September on encrypted internet channels, after posing as a prospective MKY member, the complaint says.<\/p>\n

He described the Santa scheme as \u201ca bigger action than Breivik without getting caught\u201d \u2014 believed to be a reference to a reference to Anders Behring Breivik, a neo-Nazi who killed 77 people in a 2011 bombing and mass shooting spree in Norway, the feds say.<\/p>\n

He suggested that if the undercover couldn\u2019t pull off the attack on New Year\u2019s Eve, as planned, it could happen on \u201csome Jewish holiday\u201d at \u201cJewish schools full of kids. \u2026 Dead Jewish kids,\u201d according to the complaint.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe defendant has admitted his vile actions, including recruiting others to commit acts of violence against Jewish and racial minority children. His incitement of hate crimes resulted in real-world violence,\u201d U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella said Monday.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors say he inspired a January 2025 school shooting inside Antioch High School in Nashville, where the attacker posted audio online, claiming he was taking action on behalf of Maniac Murder Cult and at least one other group.<\/p>\n

In August 2024, an attacker wearing a tactical vest with Nazi symbols stabbed five people outside of a mosque in Eskisehir, Turkey, distributing a link to the Haters Handbook beforehand. He explicitly referenced Chkhikvishvili in his manifesto, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said Chkhikvishvili \u201cengaged in extensive communications over Telegram\u201d with another neo-Nazi leader, Nicholas Welker, who used to head the Feuerkrieg Division, or FKD. Welker, who went by the nickname \u201cKing ov Wrath,\u201d was sentenced to 44 months in prison last year for posting graphic death threats<\/a> online against a Brooklyn journalist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A neo-Nazi leader who wrote a manifesto called the \u201cHaters Handbook\u201d pleaded guilty in Brooklyn Monday to spearheading…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[24771,10685,24778,24775,24770,24772,24774,24773,10748,9,56,63,65,64,24776,24777],"class_list":{"0":"post-43062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-breivik","9":"tag-hate-crimes","10":"tag-hate-group","11":"tag-maniac-murder-cult","12":"tag-michael-chkhikvishvili","13":"tag-minority-children","14":"tag-mky","15":"tag-neo-nazi-leader","16":"tag-new-years-eve","17":"tag-new-york","18":"tag-ny","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-nyc-headlines","21":"tag-nyc-news","22":"tag-racial-minorities","23":"tag-undercover-agent"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}