Ex-Coast Guard lieutenant to be held pending more charges
GREENBELT, Md. — A U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant who used his work computer in what prosecutors contend was planning for a wide-scale domestic terrorist attack was ordered held for 14 days while the government weighs additional charges in his case.
Christopher Paul Hasson, 49, of Maryland was arrested on gun and drug charges after federal law enforcement last week seized a stockpile of guns and ammunition from his basement apartment that court filings say is in Silver Spring.
Prosecutors said he amassed the weapons, along with other tactical supplies, to prepare for a violent attack to further his white nationalist views.
“I am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on the earth,” Hasson said in one of his letters that contemplated launching a biological plague, according to court records filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland.
The court filings say a draft email from June 2, 2017, with the letter was found in a “deletions” subfolder on a computer used by Hasson.
Hasson was an active duty member of the U.S. Coast Guard when he was arrested last week, Coast Guard officials said. He has been at headquarters in Washington since 2016, but no longer works for the agency, according to court filings and a Coast Guard spokesman.
In the Thursday hearing before a federal magistrate, Hasson’s federal public defender said the court filings are a “hysteric mischaracterization of Mr. Hasson,” who she said has no criminal record.
Hasson has not been charged with any terrorrelated counts, but faces weapons and drug charges.
But in court filings, officials with the U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland outlined Hasson’s alleged plans for a rampage and argued Hasson should stay in jail awaiting trial.
At his detention hearing, prosecutors said Hasson spent $14,000 a year on arms and equipment preparing for an attack and read manifestos of several mass attackers, including the Unabomber and the Virginia Tech shooter.
Hasson called for “focused violence” to “establish a white homeland” and developed a hit list of targets, prosecutors said in court filings. It’s unclear whether Hasson had a specific date for an attack, but the government said he had been stockpiling weapons for at least two years.