Two US neo-Nazis from 'the Base' jailed for terrorist plot

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Two neo-Nazis who were recorded plotting a violent attack to bring down the US government have been sentenced to nine years in prison.

Brian Mark Lemley, 35, and Canadian Patrik Jordan Mathews, 29, were members of the Base, a white nationalist terror group.

They pleaded guilty to charges in June.

Although the pair were not found guilty of any violent crimes, the judge determined that their sentences deserved a terror enhancement.

CCTV cameras installed in their home in Delaware captured the men discussing how a gun rally in Richmond, Virginia, last year could be used to orchestrate the downfall of the US government.

As well as destroying railway lines and poisoning water supplies, they planned to break a racist mass murderer responsible for a 2015 church shooting out of a prison in Indiana, according to investigators.

US District Judge Theodore Chuang said the recording showed the "virulence" of their desire to kill and overthrow the US government, AP News reported. "The court rejects the notion that this was merely talk among friends," he added.

Mathews, a Canadian Army reservist, had fled Canada after his name was exposed by the Winnipeg Free Press.

He went on to live in the US state of Georgia where he engaged in military-style training exercises with the group.

Lemley served as a US Army cavalry scout in Iraq before he returned home and was diagnosed with PTSD.

The Base, formed in 2018, seeks to create terrorist cells in the US and other countries in an attempt to establish fascist, white ethno-states through a "race war", say hate-group monitors.

Unlike some people, I'm a consistent advocate of criminal justice reform, and I don't like the idea of locking people up unless there was some actual action involved.

You should be happy, the cops did their job (for once).

Huh, the wording on that makes me wonder if they were recorded by their own cameras and the recordings were subpoenaed, or if cameras were surreptitiously installed with a warrant. Also does seem like stiff sentences for just talk, I wonder if they'd actually taken any steps towards action or done something else in order to trigger the sentencing enhancement. Unlike some people, I'm a consistent advocate of criminal justice reform, and I don't like the idea of locking people up unless there was some actual action involved.

I was under the impression that there had been Muslim Americans convicted for terrorist conspiracy at times for "just talk."