An active-duty Marine assigned to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina has been charged in an illegal firearms conspiracy—which prosecutors allege was run by a cabal of neo-Nazi ex-military men who wanted to create a “modern day SS.”
The evidence includes a sickening video of live-fire weapons training that ended with the masked participants giving “Heil Hitler” salutes before a slide with the message: “Come home white man.” It also includes chat logs in which the men discussed shooting anti-racism protesters.
Justin Wade Hermanson, 21, was named in a federal indictment along with Liam Collins, 21, and Jordan Duncan, 26, both ex-Marines who served at Camp Lejeune. The fourth person charged is Paul Kryscuk, 35, reportedly a porn star who specialized in abusing black women.
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Kryscuk, whose screen name was Pauly Harker, linked up with Collins, who was drummed out of the military last year for extremist posts, on Iron March— the now-defunct fascist forum that gave birth to the terrorist organization Atomwaffen Division.
The court papers unsealed in federal court this week lay out a chilling scenario: Plans for a paramilitary organization that would buy up land and eventually wage a guerrilla war on “urban” Americans.
Collins, who had just enlisted in the Marines and didn’t leave the service until this September, described his twisted vision in a 2017 Iron March post.
“[E]everyone [in the group] is going to be required to have served in a nation’s military, whether US, UK, or Poland .... Its a goal for the longterm,” the post said. “I’ll be in the USMC for 4 years while my comrades work on the groups physical formation ... .It will take years to gather all the experience and intelligence that we need to utilize - but that’s what makes it fun. It takes a man’s willpower and heart to make a commitment like this.”
In a 2017 message to Collins, Kryscuk allegedly fantasized about bringing about “the Balkanization of America” by buying up swaths of land in white, rural, conservative areas of the country.
“First order of business is knocking down The System, mounting it and smashing it’s [sic] face until it has been beaten past the point of death,” he wrote, according to the indictment.
“Eventually we will have to bring the rifles out and go to work.”
Prosecutors say Collins, Kryscuk, and Duncan combined forces to manufacture and modify weapons to make them more lethal and harder to trace by law enforcement—some of which were allegedly sold to Marines, with Hermanson acting as the middleman.
Kryscuk, Collins, and Duncan, who became a military contractor after leaving the Marines, all moved to Boise, Idaho, this year. Over summer, when Black Lives Matter protests sprang up in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, Kryscuk and Duncan stalked protesters, the indictment alleges.
Messages from Oct. 1 allegedly show Kryscuk and Duncan talking about their group—referred to as BSN—shooting protesters:
<p><strong>DUNCAN</strong>: “How the BSNs finna be pulling up to chipotle after hitting legs”<strong>KRYSCUK</strong>: “Death squad”<strong>KRYSCUK</strong>: “Assassins creed hoodies and suppressed 22 pistols”<strong>DUNCAN</strong>: “People freaking tf out”<strong>KRYSCUK</strong>: “About what”<strong>DUNCAN</strong>: “The end of democracy”<strong>KRYSCUK</strong>: “One can hope”</p>
The Boise Police Department condemned the group that had put down stakes in its city.
“Those seeking to cause violence are not welcome in our city,” Boise Police Chief Ryan Lee said in a statement. “The Boise Police Department is committed to rooting out anyone, from any background and any viewpoint, who would do harm or sow fear in our community.”
The court docket does not list any defense attorneys for the defendants.
