By Canadian Press

Ex-Canadian Armed Forces reservist should get 25 years in prison: U.S. prosecutors

Oct 25, 2021 | 12:21 PM

GREENBELT, Md. — A former Canadian Armed Forces reservist who faces up to 25 years in prison for his role in a plot to violently trigger a race war in the United States was already backing away from the plan when he was arrested, defence lawyers argued Monday. 

Patrik Mathews, 28, from Beausejour, Man., and U.S. army veteran Brian Mark Lemley Jr. have both already pleaded guilty to various weapons charges in advance of a sentencing hearing scheduled for Thursday. 

But U.S. prosecutors want District Court Judge Theodore Chuang to apply a so-called “terrorism enhancement” that would result in 25-year sentences because their crimes involved an effort to “promote” federal terrorism offences. 

Mathews, sporting a thick head of hair that reached nearly to the middle of his back and a long, scruffy beard beneath his face mask, looked relaxed and animated at times throughout the daylong hearing. 

The plot, revealed through FBI wiretaps, surveillance and conversations with an undercover operative, revolved mainly around a scheme to violently disrupt a gun-rights rally at the state capitol in Virginia in January 2020. 

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But Lemley’s lawyer told a hearing Monday that the government’s own evidence shows the two men had already decided instead to attend an event in Michigan with fellow members of the white supremacist group The Base. 

Ned Smock displayed pages of a transcript of a conversation between the two men and an undercover agent, whose primary goal was to extract incriminating details of the plan. 

“What you see in these conversations is there is not an intent to be in Virginia, and in fact they are going to Michigan to be at this Base event,” Smock said. 

The Virginia rally has “been the essence of the government’s theory from the beginning of this case, and we now know it’s not accurate.” 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Windom spent the morning laying out the intricate legal argument for why the terrorism enhancement is relevant. 

He walked FBI Special Agent Rachid Harrison through a variety of pieces of evidence on a table in front of the judge’s dais, including two assault-style rifles — one of them a “ghost gun” assembled by the pair from aftermarket parts, a strategy designed to ensure that a weapon is impossible to trace. 

Other items included long-distance rifle scopes, thermal optics and night-vision equipment, as well as ammunition and a variety of camouflage garments, much of it sporting the Base’s logo. 

The evidence, Windom said, “shows it’s more than idle talk … there’s a core purpose.” 

He quoted from text messages and transcripts to show Mathews firmly believed in the principles of white supremacy, describing “affirmative action” as a policy designed “to subjugate white people.” 

“‘We’re the bad guys already to them,'” Windom quoted Mathews as saying. “‘I think it’s time we became the bad guys. 

“‘They think we’re white-supremacist terrorists — let’s give them what they want, give them what they deserve.'” 

In court documents, both Smock and Mathews’ lawyer, Joseph Balter, insist that their clients never intended to commit any acts of terrorism and deserve only 33 months behind bars. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 25, 2021.

James McCarten, The Canadian Press