The FBI has arrested a white supremacist in Fort Lauderdale. Here’s the charge
The arrest of Paul Nicholas Miller by FBI agents at his Fort Lauderdale home Tuesday morning on a pedestrian charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon seems a minor thing for the feds to make a point of announcing.
Until, that is, it’s noted that the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force was part of the arresting team, along with FBI agents and Fort Lauderdale police officers. Also, the Anti-Defamation League considers Paul Miller “a volatile white supremacist-accelerationist.”
The 32-year-old Miller, convicted on drug manufacturing/distribution charges in 2007 and 2009 according to New Jersey records, is looking at a maximum of 10 years on the new charge.
The indictment says the gun possession happened in 2018. Miller had been living in the 1300 block of Southwest Sixth Street.
At his first appearance Wednesday, Miller told Magistrate Judge Lurana Snow he had enough money to hire his own attorney. Snow set the bond hearing for Friday morning to allow that attorney to represent Miller.
Federal prosecutor Kiran Bhat said he will ask the judge to detain Miller before trial on the gun possession charge, claiming the white supremacist is a danger to the community.
At the end of Wednesday’s brief hearing, Miller said to Snow, “I’m really sorry for all of this. I really am,” without specifying the reason for his apology.
Ripples among online white supremacists
The Daily Beast reported that Miller’s arrest brought a new level of anxiety to his fellow racists who bond online. They worried that the FBI soon would be coming for them, especially the ones who bought patches from Miller that promoted his Telegram channel.
“Jan. 6 was not an isolated event,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told a Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. “The problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a long time now and it’s not going away anytime soon.”
Miller was described Wednesday by federal law enforcement as an extreme white supremacist, but he is not suspected of having any connection to the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection, several sources said.
He was described as a “KKKish guy,” as one source put it.
On Twitter, the Anti-Defamation League said, “Several months ago, ADL’s Center on Extremism identified Paul Miller as a volatile white supremacist-accelerationist. COE tracked him to Fort Lauderdale and shared significant intelligence with federal law enforcement” before the arrest.
Several months ago, ADL’s Center on Extremism identified Paul Miller as a volatile white supremacist-accelerationist. COE tracked him to Fort Lauderdale and shared significant intelligence with federal law enforcement before today's arrest. https://t.co/aH6nCYPVNR
— ADL (@ADL) March 2, 2021
Miller is on Telegram as GypsyCrusader, a self-described “investigative journalist” with “News for Patriots Christians and God loving Americans.”
His 42,300 followers get videos of Miller dressed as one of the Mario Bros. of video game fame, the comic book villain The Joker, various posts with swastikas and racial slurs against Black men and women and Jewish men and women.
He saw an anti-Semitic message as he drove by. He did something about it.
Swastika, Nazi painted on store owned by Trump supporter. ‘People just don’t like Trump.’
