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It was revealed Thursday that the two men who were arrested for gun charges last year while under FBI surveillance discussed harming one of the top officials in the Virginia General Assembly. Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates Eileen Filler-Corn says that she was informed on Thursday that those two neo-nazis who were arrested prior to a massive 2020 gun rally at the state Capitol were potentially targeting her.
Patrik Mathews and U.S. Army veteran Brian Mark Lemley Jr. are scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 28 after being arrested and held in jail since January of 2020. They were arrested at a Delaware apartment where the FBI had installed a camera and microphone and were surveilling them.
“I doubt there’s a place to sit about 5- 600 yards away,” Lemley said when contemplating harming Filler-Corn and explaining to Mathews that it would be difficult to get to her because she likely lives in a mansion.
“Depending on how she gets to work every day. We could just you know have [unintelligible] something happens to her on the way to work. You know what I mean,” Mathews responded.
These comments are coming to light after the prosecution filed them with a Maryland court on Thursday ahead of the sentencing for Mathews and Lemley. They both plead guilty to gun charges in June of this year and the gun rally isn’t mentioned specifically in those charges. But prosecutors are using the recorded conversation about the Richmond gun rally for a terrorism enhancement to potentially increase the sentencing.
“This is extremely disturbing, and it should disturb all Americans,” Filler-Corn said in a statement Friday afternoon. “This pattern of using violence to intimidate the leaders and symbols of our democracy undermines the core values of our democracy itself.”
Mathews and Lemley also considered during the recorded conversation that harming someone would actually speed up the Democratic agenda to enact more gun-control laws. “To be the victim of gun violence they would probably accelerate their gun control agenda,” Mathews said during the conversation.
They also insulted the Speaker because she is Jewish. “Ah considering that she’s Jewish that tells me that ah f*ck it’s interesting how they invaded that one city took over and now they’re changing the state [unintelligible] I mean you’ve seen that laundry list of bills. They’re gonna radically change Virginia,” Mathews said, according to the court documents.
“Virginia has taken bold strides toward becoming a more inclusive society; dismantling systemic racism, antisemitism, and misogyny; and protecting our people from gun violence. Our work has made the Commonwealth safer,” Filler-Corn says. “I will continue to represent my constituents and will not be deterred or stopped from serving the people of Virginia. We take threats seriously, and will continue to work to ensure the safety of all public servants and advocates who work in and around the oldest continuously legislating body in the Western hemisphere.”
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