The alleged leader of a violent white supremacist group pleaded guilty to soliciting hate crimes, federal prosecutors said, after he was accused of urging another individual to poison Jewish children and dress up as Santa Claus and hand out poisoned candy to children of racial minority groups in New York during the holidays.
Michail Chkhikvishvili, a 22-year-old Georgian national also known as “Commander Butcher,” pleaded guilty Monday at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, according to the Justice Department. He also pleaded guilty to sending instructions to make bombs and ricin, prosecutors said.
Chkhikvishvili was a leader of an international racially motivated extremist group known as “Maniac Murder Cult,” federal prosecutors said. The group is based in Russia and Ukraine, adheres to a neo-Nazi ideology and has members in the United States and around the world, according to his April 2024 arrest warrant.
After traveling to Brooklyn in 2022, Chkhikvishvili began using the messaging app Telegram to encourage others to target Jewish individuals and racial minorities with acts of mass violence, prosecutors said.
From November 2023, he urged one individual — who he did not know was an undercover FBI employee — to target minorities with violent crimes including arson and bombings, prosecutors said, the Justice Department statement said, noting that Chkhikvishvili also shared detailed information about creating and mixing lethal poisons and gases, including ricin.
Prosecutors said he plotted a “mass casualty” attack in New York City on New Year’s Eve in 2023. The plot involved having another individual dress up as Santa and supply racial minority children with poison-laced candies.
According to the original complaint, Chkhikvishvili sent detailed instructions on how to carry out the attack, telling the individual to source a “big beard,” “glasses” and “fake white eyebrows” and to “burn Santa clothes and equipment” afterward.
Prosecutors said he also directed the undercover FBI employee to target the Jewish community, including children, with poison.
In addition, prosecutors said Chkhikvishvili’s incitement of violence had resulted in “multiple attacks and killings around the world” from Tennessee to Turkey, citing examples of two recent attacks in which perpetrators referenced Chkhikvishvili.
Chkhikvishvili was arrested in July 2024 in Moldova and extradited to the Eastern District of New York in May.
In Monday’s statement, Attorney General Pamela Bondi hailed the “outstanding investigative work” involved in the case. “Violent, nihilistic, racist groups like these are an ongoing threat to the American people,” she said.
U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said: “The defendant has admitted his vile actions, including recruiting others to commit acts of violence against Jewish and racial minority children. His incitement of hate crimes resulted in real-world violence.”
In recent years, Chkhikvishvili distributed a manifesto titled the “Hater’s Handbook” to members of the Maniac Murder Cult and others, prosecutors said. The handbook urged readers to carry out acts of mass violence including school shootings.
Chkhikvishvili’s court-appointed attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Wednesday.
Chkhikvishvili faces a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison.
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