Self-described ‘skinhead’ pleads guilty to trying to blow up a Colorado synagogue
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — A man who plotted to blow up a synagogue in Colorado has pleaded guilty to federal hate crimes and explosives charges.
Richard Holzer, a self-described “skinhead” and former Ku Klux Klan member who used Facebook to promote white supremacy, was arrested last November for plotting to blow up a 100-year-old synagogue in Pueblo, Colorado. The synagogue, Temple Emanuel, has 35 member families.
Holzer was arrested after plotting with a man he thought was a co-conspirator but who was actually an FBI agent. Holzer had previously attempted to poison the synagogue’s water supply with arsenic.
“This is the most important work that we can do – protecting our communities by stopping an attack before it occurred,” said Colorado US Attorney Jason Dunn in a statement.
Read the FBI affidavit detailing Holzer’s plot here.
A Department of Homeland Security report released this month concluded that white supremacists pose the biggest domestic terror threat in the United States.
The bombing plot profoundly affected the community, which typically meets twice a month. The synagogue’s rabbi has since voiced his support for congregants carrying guns into the sanctuary,
“We’re going to be here. We’ve been here for 119 years,” the rabbi said. “But we’re going to do what we need to do to protect ourselves.”
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
