Federal law enforcement agents arrested neo-Nazi leader Chris Cantwell in New Hampshire on Thursday, marking new legal trouble for one of the leaders at the deadly 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Cantwell, who became notorious after the rally as the “crying Nazi” profiled by Vice News, was arrested on two federal charges related to making interstate threats. Daily Beast contributor Seamus Hughes first reported a new indictment against Cantwell on Twitter. Cantwell could not be immediately reached for comment.
The charges against Cantwell related to an alleged attempt to pressure someone to reveal personal information about a Cantwell enemy, according to the indictment. In messages sent on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app that’s become a haven for white supremacists, Cantwell allegedly pressured someone to give up what’s described in the indictment as “personal identifying information” about a man known by the “on-line pseudonym ‘VM.’”
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“So if you don’t want me to come and f*ck your wife in front of your kids, then you should make yourself scarce,” Cantwell allegedly wrote in a June 16 message. “Give me Vic, it’s your only out.”
This isn’t the first time Cantwell has been accused of making threats. Last July, Cantwell allegedly used Telegram to threaten a lawyer suing him over his actions in Charlottesville, calling the woman anti-Semitic slurs and claiming that he and his followers “would have a lot of fucking fun with her.” Cantwell has also been banned from Virginia for five years, after pleading guilty to assault charges related to the pepper-spraying of two activists.
