Dennis Mahon | |
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Born | Dennis William Mahon August 29, 1950 Davis Junction, Illinois, U.S. |
Occupation | Aircraft mechanic |
Organization(s) | White Aryan Resistance, National Alliance (formerly), Ku Klux Klan (formerly) |
Known for | Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy theories and the 2004 Office of Diversity and Dialogue mail bombing in Scottsdale, Arizona. |
Title | Imperial Wizard (formerly) [1] |
Movement | Neo-Nazi, anti-government |
Criminal status | Incarcerated |
Criminal charge | conspiracy to damage buildings and property by means of explosives, malicious damage of a building by means of explosives, distribution of information related to explosives [2] [3] |
Penalty | 40 years in prison |
Dennis William Mahon [4] (born August 29, 1950) is an American right-wing terrorist who is part of the radical white supremacist movement. [5] He was indicted for the 2004 Office of Diversity and Dialogue mail bombing in Scottsdale, Arizona. [6] Mahon is currently incarcerated at FCI Terre Haute. [7]
On August 29, 1950, Dennis Mahon was born with his identical twin brother, Daniel Wallace Mahon, to Bill and Barbara Mahon in Davis Junction, Illinois. [8]
Dennis attended Auburn High School and graduated from Stillman Valley High School in 1968. He later received a degree in aviation management from Rock Valley College in 1970. [8] He also served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. [9] [10]
The Mahon twins first got involved in white supremacist activism in the 1970s when they joined the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Mahon claimed that he was first inspired to join after reading The Turner Diaries while working as an aircraft mechanic in Florida. [11] In 1988 they left the group to form the Missouri White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in the Kansas City area. In 1989 Mahon unsuccessfully ran for alderman in Northmoor, Missouri on a platform of keeping the community white. In the early 1990s, Mahon moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma and left the Klan to become affiliated with Tom Metzger's White Aryan Resistance. [12] Mahon felt that the Klan had gotten too moderate and that Klan's membership was full of informants and low quality recruits. [13]
In 1991, Mahon held a rally in Tulsa in support of then Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and to protest the Persian Gulf War. Mahon later claimed to have received money from the Iraqi government. [13] Also in 1991, Mahon travelled to several cities in Germany to recruit for the Klan. Mahon lead 60 people in a cross burning in an area southeast of Berlin. Mahon also claimed he encouraged German recruits to commit firebombings of buildings occupied by foreigners and that he trained them in guerilla warfare. [14]
In 1992, Mahon ran to be the mayor of Tulsa [15]
In 1993, Mahon travelled to Canada on behalf of Metzger but was deported back to America shortly after arriving as Canadian authorities claimed he was threat. [11]
Starting in 1992, Mahon is known to have been a frequent visitor to the white separatist community Elohim City. According to Mahon himself, he stated that he resided there for approximately four years and kept an Airstream trailer parked there, before leaving in August 1995. During this time, he also began taking his then-girlfriend, Carol Howe, to the compound. [16] [17]
While working as an informant for the ATF, Carol Howe reported that Mahon, along with Andreas Strassmeir, discussed "targeting federal installations for destruction," such as the Tulsa IRS Office, the Tulsa Federal Building, and the Oklahoma City Federal Building. [1]
Mahon was called to appear before a grand jury in Tulsa, Oklahoma in July 1997 and was to answer questions in relation to the bombing. Mahon did appear but did not answer any of the questions he was asked about the bombing. One witness claimed to have seen Mahon sitting next to Timothy McVeigh in the Ryder truck that contained the bomb used in the attack around 30 minutes before the explosion. However, phone records and other witnesses later showed that Mahon was in Illinois on the day of the bombing. [9] [18]
In a 2001 interview with Jon Ronson, Mahon acknowledged meeting McVeigh at a Tulsa gunshow and praised his actions, but denied involvement in the bombing. He did however accuse Strassmeir of being involved in the bombing. [19]
In a 2007 interview with a National Geographic reporter, Mahon praised McVeigh for his actions. [20]
2004 Scottsdale Office of Diversity mail bombing | |
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Location | Office of Diversity and Inclusion in Scottsdale, Arizona [21] |
Date | February 26, 2004 [22] |
Attack type | Domestic terrorism Letter bombing |
Weapons | Pipe bomb |
Deaths | 0 |
Injured | 3 |
Perpetrators | Dennis Mahon |
Motive | Hate crime Ethnically-motivated terrorism |
On February 26, 2004, Scottsdale's Office of Diversity and Dialogue received a package in a cardboard box addressed to Don Logan, the office's director. The package contained a bomb which exploded in Logan's hands, seriously injuring him and his assistant. Another office worker received less severe injuries. The Mahon brothers quickly became suspects as they had attended a white power rock festival a few weeks prior to the gathering and Mahon had called the office and left a threatening voice mail a few months prior to bombing. [23]
While investigating Dennis and Daniel Mahon for involvement in the mail bombing, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives recruited ex-stripper Rebecca "Becca" Williams as an investigative informant. Williams moved into the same trailer park as the Mahon twins and struck a friendship with them. She worked over time to win their trust. Williams was nicknamed the "Trailer Park Mata Hari". [24] [25] [26] Mahon was recorded bragging to Williams that he had committed the bombing of the Scottsdale office and several other bombings of an abortion clinic, a Jewish community center, and offices of the IRS and immigration authorities. [23] [27]
After a five-year undercover federal investigation, the Mahon brothers were arrested at their Illinois home in 2009 for the connection to the 2004 Office of Diversity and Dialogue mail bombing. [28] After the Mahons were arrested, the homes of Metzger and a Powell, Missouri affiliate named Robert Joos were raided. [12]
The jury found Dennis Mahon guilty for the bombing, but found his brother, Daniel Mahon, not guilty. [29]
The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, on April 19, 1995, the second anniversary of the end to the Waco siege. It also occurred on the same day as the execution of Arkansas white supremacist Richard Snell, who had "predicted" a bombing would take place that day; despite rumors, it remains unclear if Snell's execution served as a motive for the bombing. The bombing was the deadliest act of terrorism in U.S. history prior to the September 11 attacks in 2001, and remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. On April 19, 2000, the Oklahoma City National Memorial was dedicated on the site of the Murrah Federal Building, commemorating the victims of the bombing. Remembrance services are held every year on April 19, at the time of the explosion.
Timothy James McVeigh was an American domestic terrorist who perpetrated the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995. The bombing killed 168 people, injured 680, and destroyed one-third of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. It remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history.
White Aryan Resistance (WAR) is a white supremacist and neo-Nazi organization in the United States which was founded and formerly led by former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon Tom Metzger. It was based in Warsaw, Indiana, and it was also incorporated as a business. In 1993, the group expanded into Canada.
The Aryan Republican Army (ARA), also dubbed "The Midwest Bank bandits" by the FBI and law-enforcement, was a white nationalist terrorist gang which robbed 22 banks in the Midwest from 1994 to 1996. The bank robberies were spearheaded by Donna Langan. The gang, who had links to Neo-Nazism and white supremacism, were alleged to have conspired with convicted terrorist Timothy McVeigh in the months before the Oklahoma City bombing terrorist attack. Although it has never been proven, many theorists believe the ARA funneled robbery money to help fund the bombing as a direct response to the Waco and Ruby Ridge sieges.
Elohim City is a private community in Adair County, Oklahoma, United States. The 400 acres (1.6 km2) rural retreat was founded in 1973 by Robert G. Millar, a Canadian immigrant, former Mennonite, and "one of the most important leaders" in America's Christian Identity movement, a theology common to an assortment of right-wing extremist groups. The community gained national attention for its ties to members of The Order in the 1980s, as well as with convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in the 1990s.
Ghosts of Mississippi is a 1996 American biographical courtroom drama film directed by Rob Reiner and starring Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg, and James Woods. The film is based on the 1994 trial of Byron De La Beckwith, a white supremacist accused of the 1963 assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers.
Michael William Brescia is an American convicted bank robber who has also been alleged to have been involved in the Oklahoma City bombing.
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David Wayne Hull is a leader of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which is considered the most militant as well as the most violent Ku Klux Klan in history.
Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., commonly known as Glenn Miller or Frazier Glenn Cross, was an American domestic terrorist, murderer, and leader of the defunct North Carolina-based White Patriot Party who was the perpetrator of the Overland Park Jewish Community Center shooting. Convicted of murder as well as criminal charges related to weapons, and the violation of an injunction against paramilitary activity, Miller was a perennial candidate for public office. He was an advocate of white nationalism, white separatism, Odinism, and antisemitism.
Thomas Linton Metzger was an American white supremacist, neo-Nazi skinhead leader and Klansman. He founded White Aryan Resistance (WAR), a neo-Nazi organization, in 1983. He was a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s. Metzger voiced strong opposition to immigration to the United States, and was an advocate of the Third Position. He was incarcerated in Los Angeles County, California, and Toronto, Ontario, and was the subject of several lawsuits and government inquiries. He, his son, and WAR were fined a total of $12.5 million as a result of the murder of Mulugeta Seraw, 28, an Ethiopian student, by skinheads in Portland, Oregon, affiliated with WAR.
Reverend Willie Ray Lampley rose to national attention in the United States of America as a self-proclaimed prophet, the head of the Universal Church of God (Yahweh) based in Vernon, Oklahoma which was part of the Christian Identity movement. Lampley was also the leader of a small far right paramilitary group called the Oklahoma Constitutional Militia. In November 1995 he and his wife Cecilia, along with John Dare Baird and Larry Wayne Crow, were arrested under charges of conspiracy to manufacture and possess a destructive device. According to the FBI, their plan was to bomb abortion clinics, gay bars, federal buildings, the office of the Anti-Defamation League in Houston, Texas, and the office of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama. According to court documents, Lampley intended to use a destructive device consisting of 'homemade C-4' made of ammonium nitrate, nitromethane, aluminum powder and a detonation device. Lampley's plans were interrupted when FBI informant Richard Schrum alerted authorities that the homemade bomb was about to be tested at Elohim City. The FBI held that their foiling the plot "saved as many lives as what was lost in Oklahoma City".
Carol Elizabeth Howe is a former informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Howe became a key figure in Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy theories when she said that she informed authorities of a right-wing extremist plan to blow up a federal building in Oklahoma a few months before the Oklahoma City bombing.
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