Local man faces 5 years in racist plot

Federal prosecutors are asking for a five-year prison sentence for a Houstonarea man arrested last year as part of a group of violent extremists accused of plotting “a nationwide scare” targeting journalists of color, activists, Jews, a government official, a black congregation and a Virginia university.

John Cameron Denton, of Montgomery, is slated to appear at 10 a.m. Tuesday for sentencing in federal court in Virginia. He previously pleaded guilty to “conspiring to transmit in interstate and foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to injure the person of another,” records show.

Court filings say Denton was part of a far-reaching plot in which conspirators made at least 134 threats to individuals and institutions. Many of the most influential conspirators, including Denton, targeted the victims for racist reasons, records say.

According to earlier reports, investigators said he and Kaleb Cole, a close friend and former roommate, held leadership roles in Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi group linked to several violent acts including murder. Denton, who was known as “Rape” online and worked at a mortuary, is charged along with others in Virginia with tricking emergency dispatchers into sending police to a series of non-existent violent situations at unwitting third-party addresses — a harassment tactic known as “swatting.”

Cole, also from Montgomery, is facing federal charges in Seattle. His trial is set for Sept. 20.