A man linked to a neo-Nazi group has received a 15-year prison sentence for attempting to recruit members to carry out violent acts against Jewish and other minority communities, including a disturbing plan involving individuals disguised as Santa Claus distributing poisoned treats to children. Identified as Michail Chkhikvishvili, a 22-year-old from Georgia, he leads an Eastern European neo-Nazi faction under the alias ‘Commander Butcher.’ Chkhikvishvili admitted guilt in November to soliciting hate crimes and disseminating bomb-making and ricin information.
The Assistant Attorney General for National Security, John Eisenburg, stated that Chkhikvishvili advocated for the killing of civilians, including children, and plotted assaults on Jewish and minority groups in the US. The defendant even tried to recruit an accomplice to pose as Santa Claus and distribute toxic candy to minority children. In a letter to the judge, Chkhikvishvili expressed regret for his actions and acknowledged the harm caused by spreading hatred and violence.
Prosecutors labeled Chkhikvishvili as the head of the ‘Maniac Murder Cult,’ an extremist organization promoting neo-Nazi beliefs to incite racial and religious conflicts. They linked the group’s violent directives, disseminated through Telegram channels and detailed in the ‘Hater’s Handbook,’ to multiple real-world killings, including a shooting in Nashville that claimed the life of a 16-year-old student.
Chkhikvishvili was accused of distributing the ‘Hater’s Handbook’ since 2021 and of encouraging hate crimes and violence in Brooklyn starting in 2022. Prosecutors revealed that in 2023, he solicited an undercover FBI operative to carry out bombings and arsons targeting racial minorities and Jewish individuals. By 2024, the FBI operative was instructed to poison the Jewish community, schools, and children in Brooklyn with lethal substances, including ricin.
US Attorney Joseph Nocella condemned Chkhikvishvili as a hateful threat aiming to harm children in the Jewish and other minority communities of New York City. The sentencing of concurrent 180-month terms by US District Judge Carol Bagley Amon was based on the defendant’s incitements to violence rather than his radical beliefs. The judge emphasized that actions, not ideologies, led to the severe punishment.