Lawsuits, writings of beheading suspect show path to radicalization
From high school class clown to disillusioned college graduate to anti-establishment murder suspect, the radicalization of Justin Mohn can be traced for decades in his now deleted online writings, music, social media posts and a string of court documents.
Before the 32-year-old Levittown man allegedly killed and beheaded his father, Michael Mohn, 68, and issued an online “call to arms” for bloody revolution Jan. 30, Mohn complained that his status as an “over-educated white man” was keeping him from achieving his American dream as a financially secure artist.
After graduating college in 2014, Mohn appeared to find enemies in his family, employers, law enforcement and the federal court system — all cogs in a Satanic machine aimed at “eroding if not destroying any remnants of the social contract … that founded America.”
His growing resentment over his inability to achieve the success to which he believed he was entitled reshaped his world view, which he shared with thousands in a YouTube video complete with the display of his father’s severed head, fueling his self-image from American victim to savior.
The man who police say killed and then went to mobilize troops in his fight to take back America now sits in Bucks County jail charged with murder and other offenses in the crime that shocked the world last month.
Time in Colorado shaped beliefs
After Mohn failed to find fulltime jobs in Bucks County after his 2014 graduation from Penn State University, in 2015 he settled in Colorado Springs, known as the “City of Millionaires,” and quickly landed a job in a call center for $13 an hour.
It didn’t last long, and Mohn, a Neshaminy High School graduate who took the award as runner-up class clown, began a string of shortterm jobs that left him struggling to afford his $165-a-month student loan payments for two years until they were reduced through an income-driven repayment plan.
Three months after moving to Colorado, Mohn released the first in a series of self-published books with mostly violent dystopian, anti-government conspiracy themes.
A year after his move, Mohn landed his best paying job yet. As a customer service representative for Progressive Insurance, he made $16 an hour, according to court documents.
Within months, though, another hint of his growing frustrations appeared.
Mohn contacted the Colorado Springs Police Department in May 2017 requesting they investigate an incident where he felt he was being discriminated against, department spokesperson Ira Cronin said. The report offered no additional details, he said.
Shortly after he contacted police, Mohn started asking about other company openings, but was not promoted or moved to the IT or copywriting jobs he sought, according to emails associated with his lawsuits.
In later court documents, Mohn accused his supervisors of holding him back “with the intent of destroying my livelihood.” He claimed he was overlooked “because of my learning pace being too fast and my overqualifications and overeducation for such a role.”
In an email, Mohn warned supervisors he could sue if he was terminated. He also vowed to use his “publishing capability to publicly reveal [Progressive’s] violations of its core values as well as civil rights or labor law violations.”
Shortly after, the company suspended him, then terminated him for kicking open an office door. He said he didn’t intend any harm and that as a soccer player he “always” opened doors with his feet, according to court documents.
In September 2017, a month after he was terminated, Mohn released his first music album, “The Story of Humanity,” which features songs like “Gaslight” and “Zersetzung,” a psychological technique used to repress political opponents in East Germany.
The FBI and lawsuits
In 2018, Mohn’s social media posts caught the attention of the FBI, after its National Threat Operations Center received a tip about “concerning” content.
It was the first of four tips the FBI investigated involving Mohn, but found no evidence of illegal activity or imminent threat requiring further action, spokesperson Ned Conway said.
Later in 2018, Mohn made good on his promise to sue Progressive. He filed a claim in Colorado’s U.S. District Court, alleging genderbased job discrimination. Less than a year later, in 2019, he was handed another defeat when Senior U.S. District Judge Marcia S. Krieger found in favor of Progressive
Krieger wrote that Mohn provided no or little evidence to support his claims he was terminated based on gender or that women were given preferential treatment.
A handful of women in his training class were paid the same as him, while several other women and the only other man in Mohn’s class were paid more, according to the lawsuit.
“Putting aside the question of whether Mr. Mohn’s actions did or could have damaged the door or injured anyone standing nearby, it is entirely permissible for an employer to decide that an employee who occasionally opens doors in such an unorthodox way is not an employee they wish to retain,” Krieger wrote.
Return to Levittown
After four years in Colorado, Mohn was back to part-time work, this time at a sandwich shop making $8 an hour plus tips. He lasted two months.
He complained in later legal filings his dire financial situation forced him to leave Colorado, owing more than $4,600 in rent.
After moving back to his parents’ home in Levittown in 2019, Mohn contacted Middletown police alleging someone at Progressive threatened him. He reported it so there would be a record, police said.
In early 2020, he found “temporary” work as a client representative for a Bristol mortgage company earning $14 an hour. He lasted less than a month.
But he kept himself busy, appealing the Progressive decision in Colorado’s 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which rejected it, too.
He also wrote three more books in 2020, including “Second Messiah: King of the Earth,” which Mohn called a “dark comedy book not meant to offend anyone,” on his now suspended Facebook page.
The plot appears to be a fictionalized account of Mohn’s time in Colorado.
The protagonist, Buster Moon, leaves his small Ohio town at the behest of a father who is verbally abusive and a mother who “hardly intervenes.” Buster moves to Colorado where he ends up working for “Chaos Insurance” earning $14 an hour, less than he was hoping for.
In one scene, Mohn described Chaos managers, many of whom are “deformed midgets” forming a circle and chanting, before pulling out knives and cutting their hands and drinking each other’s blood.
“‘Incest, incest, incest, demons, demons, demons,’ ” the demons chanted. One by one, the new employees stood up and joined one of the three groups of either dip[expletive], demons, or dogs, until only Buster Moon remained seated. The site director spoke. ‘It seems everyone fits in with our culture… except… this young man.’ ”
Blame for finances, underemployment
His Progressive lawsuit dead, Justin Mohn had a new scapegoat for his troubles — the federal government, which would be the target in his call to arms years later in his online rant in the YouTube video after the murder.
In March 2022, he filed the first of two lawsuits alleging negligence and misrepresentation against the U.S Department of Education and its secretary.
In a 450-page petition, Mohn argued that the federal government deceived him and his parents when it failed to warn them that as an “overeducated” white male he would be unable to find a satisfactory job after college to repay his student loans.
He sought $10 million in damages, the same amount Mohn, on his Jan. 30 YouTube video, would claim he possessed to pay out the bounties he offered on federal officials and judges.
A federal judge dismissed the suit two months later. But Mohn wasn’t ready to admit defeat.
In August 2022, he filed what he called “Mohn II,” against the same defendants in a lawsuit that largely mirrored his original one.
This time, Mohn argued that had he prevailed against Progressive, he wouldn’t need to sue the federal government for relief. He also implied that the federal government ultimately was to blame for his situation.
“The District Court of Colorado and the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit seem to believe that in the eyes of the EEOC affirmative action laws, Progressive and other employers are allowed and encouraged to harass, discriminate and wrongfully terminate white men in order to level the playing field,” Mohn wrote in the lawsuit.
“This taught plaintiff that the true wrongdoing came from the federal government, not Progressive.”
Another lawsuit, another book, a last stand
After his second lawsuit was dismissed in December 2022, Mohn appealed in Pennsylvania’s 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. Once again, the court system rejected his arguments.
But Mohn stood his ground, taking aim at a new target: the U.S. attorney’s office and U.S. attorney general, whom he sued for negligence.
At this point, Mohn was working as a flower delivery man in Philadelphia, where his conduct and radical beliefs targeting women and the LGTBQ community were making his co-workers uncomfortable, authorities said.
Last year his employer contacted Middletown police about Mohn and concerns about the content in his online books and seeking advice on how to fire him.
Before the end of the year, Mohn got an answer on his latest lawsuit. In a December opinion dismissing it, U.S. Eastern Court Judge Mark Kearney wrote, “Mr. Mohn’s negligence claim premised on an alleged fiduciary duty of the United States owed to him as a borrower, explaining a creditor–debtor relationship does not give rise to a fiduciary duty. But he is back.
“Mr. Mohn cannot state a claim for negligence,” Kearney added. “The United States as a lender through the student loan program does not have a duty to him as a borrower.”
Mohn named Kearney in his YouTube video, where he offered bounties on the heads of federal judges, and responded to the judge’s opinion.
“Judge Kearney also recently wrote in Mohn versus the United States that the federal government has no duty to care for its own citizens eroding, if not destroying, any remnants of the social contract, which was one of the key ideologies behind the Declaration of Independence.”
A month after his latest court rejection, Mohn released, “The Punishing,” the shortest and most violent of his books.
The plot revolves around Rex Karlsson who grew up in a stereotypical middle-class family, as he battles beside archangels to save the world from Satan and his forces so a new generation can learn the “true history” from the Bible.
Two weeks later, authorities allege Mohn traded in his medical marijuana card and purchased a handgun and ammunition Jan. 29, the day before he allegedly fatally shot his father in the head and then decapitated him, leaving him in the bathroom for his mother to find as he fled to “mobilize” troops in his “revolution.”
Mohn, who faces a first-degree murder charge, was arrested on the grounds of the Pennsylvania National Guard headquarters two hours after he activated his video call for a militia-led insurrection, where he, as the “commander,” issued orders to kill all federal employees and seize all federal buildings.
Many of the themes and statements in his lawsuits and writings would be included in his nearly 15-minute anti-government rants on the YouTube video, punctuated by the showing of his father’s head wrapped in plastic. He would identify his father as a federal employee and “traitor.”
Mohn was carrying the same handgun when apprehended. It was allegedly loaded with one round missing.
Days later, authorities would say the crime was not the work of a “crazy” man, and that their investigation was just beginning.
“It was evident to us that he was of clear mind in his purpose and what he was doing, aside from what his beliefs are, he was of clear mind doing this — acting with a clear mind, aware of his actions and proud of his consequences,” Bucks County District Attorney Jennifer Schorn said.