A Las Vegas man pleaded guilty Monday to a federal weapons charge after plotting violent attacks on an LGBTQ bar, a synagogue, and the Anti-Defamation League.
Conor Climo, 24, signed the plea agreement that was filed in January in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports the agreement reads, in part, “Defendant stated that he wanted to do more against the groups he hated by carrying out violent attacks against them.”
“Defendant admitted to discussing plans for violent attacks online against the Anti-Defamation League, a local Las Vegas synagogue, and a local bar,” continued the document.
In the agreement, Climo admitted the unnamed bar catered to an LGBTQ clientele.
Climo was arrested in August last year after being monitored communicating via encrypted internet chat with individuals identified as white supremacists.
He reportedly told an FBI informant he was “scouting places to attack.” In his communications with the undercover agent, Climo sent a satellite image of the synagogue he planned to target which highlighted a possible escape route.
Investigators say Climo often used homophobic language in the encrypted chats.
When the investigators arrived at Climo’s home with a search warrant, they found “hand-drawn schematics and component parts of a destructive device” which included oxidizing agents, flammable liquids and circuit boards. An AR-15 assault-style weapon and a bolt-action rifle were also confiscated during the search, according to NBC LA.
He was charged with possessing an unregistered firearm in the form of the component parts of a destructive device.
A statement from the U.S. attorney’s office said, “Climo would regularly use derogatory racial, anti-Semitic and homosexual slurs.”
Appearing in court wearing a yellow jail jumpsuit on Monday, the Review-Journal writes, “Climo stood with closed fists at a podium, mostly answering ‘yes, your honor’ and ‘no, your honor,’ to a series of standard questions.”
CNN reports Climo will return to court on May 14 where he faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
According to the plea deal, he will be required to undergo mental health treatment and be monitored via an electronic device upon his release from prison.
Climo’s story is especially chilling as Las Vegas was the site of the nation’s deadliest mass shooting in modern US history, when 58 people were killed and more than 500 hurt in October 2017.
As Instinct reported in August, Climo made headlines in 2016 for ‘patrolling’ his neighborhood wearing battle gear and carrying an assault-style rifle and survival knife.
At the time, he told local ABC News affiliate KTNV, “I’ll pretty much stay within constitutional bounds when I’m doing this.”
He also told the reporter he would be looking for ‘suspicious activity,’ which he defined as “people outside when they’re not supposed to be.”
Climo admitted he had no formal training in patrolling, policing, or dealing with possibly tense situations.
Here’s the 2016 report from KTNV:
As a licensed mental health professional, I think the approach to this is so dumbed-down. I’m speculating here, but looking at this guy, and hearing him, I think it’s entirely possible that is on the “autism spectrum”, formerly “Asperger’s Syndrome”, and has an immature outlook on life with his language like “handy-dandy knife” and “shillouhette”, and “outside when they’re prob’ly not supposed to be.” He sounds like a child. His attraction to the guns and “patrolling”, and, later, his association with “white supremacists” is possibly a defense against his own sense of isolation for being “different” (possibly even gay himself) and wanting to fit in, first in the Army “very briefly” (he was probably discharged for mental health issues very early on, and rejected), and wanting to defend against a sense of powerlessness by appointing himself “patrol” of his neighborhood, to give him a sense of power when he is probably feeling weak and isolated. He has probably been ostracized everywhere he goes. My guess is he has little to no family or friends. He’s probably below-average intellectual functioning. He is probably Paranoid Personality Disorder, and possibly Schizoid. People like this are dangerous in some ways, but also need TREATMENT for whatever their true mental health “assessment” picture is. Socially, the local police should have leaned on this guy, investigated who he is and where his family is, and some kind of social services intervention to re-direct his “need to belong” into something more useful, with probably some kind of remedial/vocational training and social skills training. We need more funding for community mental health interventions and programs; this guy is a perfect example. Nevada doesn’t spend a lot on social services, and this is the result. More mental health professionals have to weigh in on cases like this, in order to get these people the help they need, before they become truly dangerous in their quest to “get noticed” and “be a part of something”.
“According to the plea deal, he will be required to undergo mental health treatment…”