SAN ANTONIO \u2014 A Hondo man who set out for Washington, D.C., with guns, ammunition and plans to violently overthrow the government has been sentenced to more than two years in federal prison.<\/p>\n
Jay Anthony Villarreal, 25, was sentenced Wednesday to 27 months behind bars, followed by three years of supervised release.<\/p>\n
Investigators said Villarreal left Hondo on June 28, 2025, driving toward the nation\u2019s capital. He had an AR-15 rifle, two handguns, extra loaded magazines and boxes of ammunition in his vehicle, according to court records. Agents also said they found a police scanner, binoculars and a copy of the Texas Penal Code.<\/p>\n
Authorities said Villarreal had used social media to try to recruit military veterans to join him. A friend in Maryland saw the posts the next morning, feared a possible mass shooting and contacted the FBI. Another person in Hondo also alerted police after becoming concerned about Villarreal\u2019s messages.<\/p>\n
Family members and friends reached out to Villarreal as he drove east, urging him to turn around. He changed course near Beaumont and returned home the evening of June 29.<\/p>\n
FBI agents searched his home later that day and found two military smoke grenades, officials said.<\/p>\n
Villarreal was arrested days later and convicted by a federal jury in June. The judge also ordered him to give up the guns and ammunition connected to the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2014 A Hondo man who set out for Washington, D.C., with guns, ammunition and plans to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-447068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}