Neo-Nazi members of The Base who plotted to bring firearms to pro-gun rally in Virginia sentenced to 9 years

GREENBELT, Md. - Two members of the neo-Nazi organization The Base who were living in Delaware when they discussed bringing firearms to a pro-gun rally in Richmond were sentenced to nine years in prison on Thursday.

FBI agents arrested former Canadian Armed Forces reservist Patrik Jordan Mathews, U.S. Army veteran Brian Mark Lemley Jr. of Elkton, Md. and a third member of a group called The Base four days before a pro-gun rally in Virginia in January 2020.

The Base is part of a larger far-right movement the Southern Poverty Law Center described as "accelerationist" – an ideology that works to shift the country toward a second civil war. The Base envisions such a civil war as a race war.

The judge who sentenced Mathews and Lemley to prison concluded that they intended to engage in terrorist activity. U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang’s decision to apply a "terrorism enhancement" to their sentences significantly increased their recommended prison terms under federal guidelines.

Chuang said recorded conversations between Mathews and Lemley captured the "virulence" and "passion" in their willingness to kill people and bring down the U.S. government.

Lemley pleaded guilty to charges in both Maryland and Delaware, which included conspiring to transport and house "certain aliens," as well as weapons charges and obstruction of justice.

Mathews, a Canadian national who had been living in Delaware, also pleaded guilty to Maryland and Delaware charges that included alien-related and weapon charges. He also pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in Delaware.

"He was intent on violence. He was intent on murder," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Windom.

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The third co-defendant, William Garfield Bilbrough IV, was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty in December to helping Mathews illegally enter the U.S. from Canada in 2019.

Defense attorneys said the men never developed any specific plans for violence. And they argued that an undercover FBI agent who visited the Delaware apartment tried to pressure the two "damaged military veterans" into developing a plan for violence at the Virginia rally.

During the recorded conversations, Mathews and Lemley only made "generally fleeting references to imaginary scenarios without any serious exploration about particular targets or planning operations," Mathews' attorneys wrote in a court filing.

"I really and truly believe Pat would never hurt anyone," said Glen Mathews, Patrik's father.

The Associated Press contributed to this report