Two men accused of being members of a violent white supremacist group called The Base pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges in a federal indictment in Maryland. Brian Mark Lemley Jr., 33, of Elkton, Maryland, entered the plea during his arraignment on charges including illegal transportation of a machine gun and transporting a firearm and ammunition with the intent to commit a felony. William Garfield Bilbrough IV, a 19-year-old pizza delivery driver who lived with his grandmother in Denton, Maryland, before his arrest, pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiracy to “transport and harbor certain aliens.” A third man charged in the case, former Canadian Armed Forces reservist Patrik Mathews, is scheduled for arraignment later on Tuesday.
In a court filing, Justice Department prosecutors said Lemley and Mathews discussed “the planning of violence” at a gun rights rally in Richmond, Virginia, in January. A closed-circuit television camera and microphone installed by investigators in a Delaware home captured Mathews talking about the Virginia rally as a “boundless” opportunity, prosecutors said. “And the thing is you’ve got tons of guys who … should be radicalized enough to know that all you gotta do is start making things go wrong and if Virginia can spiral out to … full blown civil war,” he said.
via japantimes: Pair linked to U.S. white supremacist group plead not guilty