Patriot Front leader appears in Idaho court

COEUR d’ALENE — The chief of the white nationalist hate group Patriot Entrance pleaded not responsible Monday in Coeur d’Alene to a misdemeanor cost of conspiracy to riot.

Thomas R. Rousseau, 23, of Grapevine, Texas, was considered one of 4 suspects who appeared earlier than Choose Anna Eckhart through Zoom.

The opposite three are James M. Johnson of Sioux Falls, S.D.; Cameron Ok. Pruitt of Halfway, Utah; and Wesley E. Van Horn of Lexington, Ala. Additionally they pleaded not responsible.

The lads are among the many 31 Patriot Entrance members accused of planning to violently disrupt a Delight celebration on June 11 in Coeur d’Alene Metropolis Park.

Patriot Entrance reportedly broke off from the neo-Nazi group Vanguard America, after the lethal “Unite the Proper” rally in 2017.

Rousseau is called Patriot Entrance’s founder and chief. The group’s manifesto reportedly requires the formation of a white ethnostate in the USA.

Police arrested the group June 11, after a tipster reported seeing a “little military” with metallic shields and different gear piling into the again of a U-Haul truck.

Rousseau reportedly informed police he was in Coeur d’Alene to “peacefully train his First Modification rights.”

He carried with him a doc detailing “name areas, main checkpoints, drill instances, prep instances and remark home windows,” in addition to GPS coordinates for a drop level and two backup plans, in response to court docket information.

The doc outlined a plan to type a column outdoors Metropolis Park and proceed inward, “till boundaries to method are met.”

As soon as “an applicable quantity of confrontational dynamic had been established,” the column would disengage and head down Sherman Avenue.

Rioting is mostly a misdemeanor in Idaho. Conspiracy to riot is punishable by as much as one yr in jail, in addition to by a $5,000 high-quality and as much as two years of probation.