Conor Climo Image by TODAY/YouTube

(JTA) — A man from Las Vegas, Nevada who worked as a security guard pleaded guilty to illegal possession of a firearm, related to charges that he planned to bomb a local synagogue or a bar that caters to the LBGTQ community.

Conor Climo, 23, appeared Monday in a Las Vegas court to possessing the components of a destructive device. He faces a maximum sentence of ten years, but The Associated Press said he was likely to get two to three years when he is sentenced in May. He will receive mental health treatment in prison.

Climo was having encrypted online conversations with individuals who identified with a white supremacist extremist organization, Feuerkrieg Division, an offshoot of the white supremacist extremist group Atomwaffen Division. At least one Atomwaffen member has been implicated in an allegedly anti-Semitic murder.

Antisemitism Decoded

Arno Rosenfeld helps you separate the signal from the noise about antisemitism and understand current debates over Jewish safety.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Climo regularly used derogatory racial, anti-Semitic, and homosexual slurs. He communicated with one undercover online contact and an FBI confidential informant.

According to the complaint, he discussed attacking a Las Vegas synagogue and making Molotov cocktails and improvised explosive devices, and discussed conducting surveillance on a bar he believed catered to the LGBTQ community. The synagogue was not identified.

A Justice Department statement said Climo’s arrest was the result of the Disruption and Early Engagement Programs, a national strategy to disrupt potential mass shootings and other rapidly mobilizing threats and the need to implement timely, effective and efficient responses.”

The post Las Vegas man pleads guilty to arms charge in relation to alleged synagogue bombing plot appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount