Neo-Nazi cult chief Michail Chkhikvishvili — whose propaganda impressed real-world bloodshed, together with a lethal Nashville college taking pictures — was sentenced Wednesday to fifteen years in jail by a New York federal choose who referred to as his crimes “terribly critical.”
The 22-year-old Georgian nationwide, identified on-line as “Commander Butcher,” appeared gaunt and pale in inexperienced jail scrubs, preventing again tears as US District Decide Carol Bagley Amon handed down the sentence in Brooklyn Federal Court docket.
“The defendant will not be being sentenced for his warped views,” Amon stated. “He’s being sentenced for his calls to motion.”
Chkhikvishvili led the Maniac Homicide Cult, or MKY, a world neo-Nazi extremist group that used Telegram and different encrypted platforms to recruit followers and encourage acts of racist violence, in keeping with federal prosecutors.
He distributed bomb-making directions, poison recipes and ‘The Hater’s Handbook,’ a manifesto praising Hitler, Timothy McVeigh and Devil whereas encouraging college shootings and assaults on minorities and Jews.
Assistant US Legal professional Andrew Reich urged the court docket to return down onerous on Chkhikvishvili, telling the choose, “This isn’t a case about summary rhetoric or web trolling. That is a few systemic, deliberate solicitation of real-world violence.
“The defendant didn’t simply glorify violence,” Reich stated. “He instructed individuals on the best way to carry it out.”
In keeping with prosecutors, Chkhikvishvili repeatedly urged an undercover FBI agent to poison Jewish youngsters in Brooklyn by handing out ricin-laced sweet on New Yr’s Eve whereas dressed as Santa Claus. Prosecutors stated he explicitly referred to as for “lifeless Jewish youngsters.”
Authorities additionally linked his propaganda to a number of violent incidents, together with the January 2025 taking pictures at Antioch Excessive College in Nashville, the place a scholar killed a classmate earlier than taking his personal life. Prosecutors stated the shooter referenced MKY and Chkhikvishvili in writings posted on-line.
An Antioch scholar addressed the court docket by speakerphone Wednesday, describing lingering trauma from the taking pictures. “Earlier than the taking pictures, college was a spot the place I felt secure,” the scholar stated. “That sense of security was taken from me and has not returned.”
Reich additionally learn from a instructor’s sufferer assertion describing watching a wounded scholar die within the cafeteria as blood splattered throughout the partitions.
“This man manipulated a susceptible and impressionable boy and turned him right into a self-hating assassin,” the instructor wrote.
Protection legal professional Zachary Taylor urged leniency, arguing his shopper was radicalized on-line as a depressed, bullied teenager whose “prefrontal cerebral cortex” was not absolutely developed.
“The defendant’s conduct on this case is horrible, disgusting, dangerous,” Taylor acknowledged. “Michail wouldn’t disagree in any manner with that assertion.”
Taylor stated his shopper had modified throughout almost two years in custody, studying the Bible, Greek literature and Nelson Mandela’s “Lengthy Stroll to Freedom.”
Chkhikvishvili himself advised the court docket he had been consumed by on-line extremism. “I used to be filling my mind with rubbish,” he stated. “The web was dragging me down like a swamp. It was a honey pot.”
He stated he hoped his case would function a warning to younger individuals susceptible to radicalization.
“I want I may specific to those younger youngsters what I went by way of in order that they don’t fall into this pathway,” he stated, including that even at his most radicalized, he generally felt pangs of conscience over the truth that his paternal grandfather was Jewish.
“I look again on myself as a silly coward,” he stated.
Amon appeared unconvinced by elements of the defendant’s assertion. “Is his regret real?” the choose requested at one level. “The defendant claims to have discovered God, which I suppose means he rejected his savior Devil.”
