A 27-year-old man who repeatedly espoused anti-Semitic views has been arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in a plot to bomb a historic Jewish synagogue in the U.S. state of Colorado, the FBI said Monday.
Richard Holzer, a former Ku Klux Klan member who planned to blow up a Pueblo synagogue south of the municipality of Denver on Sunday, was arrested Friday, the FBI told the media.
The suspect faces considerable jail time, authorities told the media.
According to court documents released Monday, undercover FBI agents approached Holzer on Facebook and met with him on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, during which Holzer “repeatedly affirmed that he was prepared to go through with the attack.” The agents then provided Holzer with fake explosives.
Holzer used several Facebook accounts “to promote white supremacy ideology and acts of violence,” the documents said.
“I wish the holocaust really did happen … they need to die,” the documents quoted him as writing on one Facebook account.
The suspect allegedly admitted planning to blow up the synagogue and referred to the plan as “my mountain,” and to Jews and the synagogue as a “cancer” to the community, the documents said.
“Federal law enforcement working in conjunction with the Pueblo Police Department has successfully stopped what we believe to be an imminent threat of domestic terrorism against a Colorado religious institution,” said U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado Jason Dunn.
