'Antifa hunter' gets 3 years for online racist threats
A Florida man who called himself “the Antifa hunter” as he waged an online campaign to terrorize and harass those who opposed his white supremacist ideology was sentenced on Monday to more than three years in prison.
Daniel McMahon, 32, of Brandon, Florida, pleaded guilty in April to using social media to threaten a Black activist to deter the man from running for office in Charlottesville, Virginia. McMahon also admitted that he threatened to sexually assault the young autistic daughter of a North Carolina woman who protested against white nationalists.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Antifa-hunter-gets-3-years-for-online-racist-15527714.php
A federal judge in Virginia sentenced McMahon to three years and five months in prison. McMahon declined an opportunity to make a public statement beforehand, but he heard from his victims during the hearing, which was conducted remotely by video conference.
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After McMahon's arrest, the North Carolina woman called federal prosecutors to report that he had threatened her and her daughter, a severely autistic minor, over Facebook and tried to extort personal information from her about another counterprotester.
The woman said McMahon sent her hundreds of threatening messages, including some detailing how he would sexually assault her daughter. He posted the girl's photo on a racist social media platform, she added. He also did a Google search for the term “sex with autistic girls” a day before his arrest, according to a court filing.
“Only a deeply disturbed individual would do this, a monster," the woman wrote. “I will never feel completely safe about my child again.”
Prosecutors say the contents of McMahon's computer revealed his obsession with racially motivated violence and hatred of Black people, including images of white supremacist James Fields plowing his car into a crowd of Charlottesville counterprotesters, killing a woman.
A folder with a racist slur for a title contained photos of dead Black men, including a lynching victim. McMahon also saved graphic images of Trayvon Martin after the Black teenager was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch member in Florida in 2012, according to prosecutors.
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