Brandon Man, Vocal White Nationalist Indicted For Racist Threats

BRANDON, FL — National racist watch groups believe his online fascist rantings have influenced racially motivated killers around the country, including the man accused of murdering 11 people last year in a Pittsburgh synagogue. And now those rantings could land a 31-year-old Brandon man in federal prison.

While the country commemorated its 9/11 heroes, a federal grand jury in the Western District of Virginia returned a sealed indictment Sept. 11 charging Daniel William McMahon with making racially motivated threats to a black city council candidate in Charlottesville, Virginia.

United States Attorney Thomas T. Cullen and Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband of the Justice Department’s Civil Right Division announced this week that McMahon has been charged with four counts of willful interference with a candidate for elective office, bias-motivated interference with a candidate for elective office, threats to injure in interstate commerce and cyber stalking.

The charges stem from threats McMahon is accused of making on social media sites in January.

Although the indictment only uses his initials, D.G., the threats are widely believed to have been against Don Gathers, co-founder of Charlottesville’s Black Lives Matter chapter. Gathers sent out a news release Jan. 7 announcing his plans to run for a city council seat in Charlottesville.

“As alleged in the indictment, this defendant was motivated by racial animus and used his social media accounts to threaten and intimidate a potential candidate for elective office,” Cullen said. “Although the First Amendment protects an individual’s right to broadcast hateful views online, it does not give license to threats of violence or bodily harm. We will continue to prioritize cyber-threat cases, including those giving rise to civil rights violations.”

“The alleged targeted and racially motivated actions by Daniel McMahon were an attempt to disrupt the American political process,” said David W. Archey, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Richmond Division. “The FBI remains committed to protecting the civil liberties of all Americans. We are grateful for the assistance of the FBI office in Tampa and the partnership with the United States Attorney’s Office, during this investigation.”

Specifically, the indictment alleges that McMahon threatened the candidate with physical harm because of his race and because he was campaigning for elected office, placing the candidate in fear of death or serious bodily injury, said the FBI.

“On these accounts, McMahon expressed and promoted his belief that white people are superior to members of other racial, ethnic and religious groups,” the indictment stated.

Gathers ultimately withdrew his candidacy.

Although hate watch groups say McMahon has used social media for years to spread racist and fascist rhetoric, this is the first time he's been indicted for his online ramblings.

Among them is the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit organization that monitors domestic hate groups in the United States.

Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, said the Internet is one of the biggest promoters of white nationalism because it has provided McMahon and other high-profile fascists and racists an international platform for hate speech and the ability to easily recruit people to their cause through public posts and one-on-one conversations via social media.

“White supremacists are being radicalized online in the same way that ISIS radicalizes recruits,” Beirich said.

Most of McMahon's comments have been made on the social network Gab, a white nationalist site created in 2016 where McMahon posts using the alias "Jack Corbin."

As "Jack Corbin," who has more than 2,000 followers on Gab, McMahon has used the platform to praise hate crimes including the Orlando Pulse shootings in 2017.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, McMahon's rhetoric attracted the attention of Robert Bowers, accused of murdering 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh on Oct. 27, 2018.

Bowers interacted with McMahon on Gab a number of times, according to the center.

Among the interactions, Bowers shared multiple posts from McMahon in early July 2018 following a riot in Portland, Oregon, involving a hate group called the Proud Boys. During the riot, a Proud Boy member was captured on a video that went viral knocking out an antifascist protester. McMahon shared the video along with running commentary about the event on Gab. Bowers, in turn, shared "Corbin's" comments.

Bowers also shared homophobic and white nationalist commentary from McMahon, including posts that read: “Whites have a right to exist, faggots do not. Faggots are not human beings, they are AIDS carrying flesh muppets,” and “It’s OK to be White. It’s OK to be Russian. It's not ok to be an Antifa terrorist.”

McMahon denied influencing Bowers but stopped short of denouncing his actions.

“I didn’t have anything to do with what Robert Bowers did," he posted on Gab to fellow white nationalists. "But I will say he has more balls than most of you all...God bless that man."

McMahon's hate rants also caught the attention of the advocacy group, Right Wing Watch. In December, Right Wing Watch published an article titled, 'Jack Corbin' and the Violent Underbelly of White Nationalism."

The length of McMahon's activism is unclear. McMahon was born on Aug. 17, 1988, is white, single, a 2005 graduate of Bloomingdale High School in Valrico, and lives on Park Manor Drive off Bryan Road with his parents.

His LinkedIn page states that he attended the University of South Florida's College of Engineering and, between 2012 and 2016, he taught basic self-defense to members of the Ophelia Project at the Campo Family YMCA and seniors at the Brandon Recreation Center.

He lists his current employment as an independent web design and software development contractor and said he is skilled in open source intelligence and biometric media analysis.

"I am interested in utilizing my Computer Science and Information Technology skills in helping to protect America," he writes in his LinkedIn resume. "Some government agencies that I would be interested in starting a career with are: The Defense Intelligence Agency; The National Security Agency; The Department of Homeland Security; et cetera."

The Network Contagion Research Institute, a nonprofit institute that uses technology to ferret out racist rhetoric across social media platforms, discovered that McMahon has also used the monikers "Pale Horse the Antifa Hunter" and "Dakota Stone" to post white nationalist comments.

In October 2017, he launched a Facebook page titled "My name is Jack Corbin, and I am going to be the man to end Antifa." He referred to himself at that time as "Jack Dark Horse Corbin" and wrote, "Now, you be careful about pissing me off. Because I'm the world's most powerful nationalist. The world's smartest Nationalist. My name is Jack Corbin, and I am going to be the man to end Antifa."

For unknown reasons, he stopped posting on the page the same month he created it.

While he describes himself as a fascist, social media watchers say McMahon doesn't always play well with other like-minded people. He's publicly railed against white nationalist extremist groups after they failed to organize opposition to a University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill protest at the Orange County Courthouse in November 2018. He's had a running battle with UNC activist students over their movement to have the Confederate statue known as "Silent Sam" removed.

Posting as Jack Corbin, McMahon threatened to "retire" from the movement, calling fellow white nationalists "weak, unreliable."

In an attempt to harass him into silence, a group called Neighborhood Nazi Watch distributed flyers and posted yard signs throughout McMahon's subdivision in February, warning neighbors that they are living near "an unstable fascist."

McMahon made his first court appearance in U.S. District Court in Tampa on Wednesday and was ordered held in custody in the Pinellas County Jail by the U.S. Marshal's Office pending a detention hearing on Monday.

The charges against McMahon - cyber stalking and transmitting threats in interstate commerce -carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The two charges arising from the threats against the candidate because of his race and because he was campaigning for elected office each carry a maximum sentence of one year in prison.

Patch has reached out to McMahon's attorney, Nick Matassini Jr., of Tampa for comment and will update this story when we hear back.

Matassini told the Washington Post that his client “categorically denies all of the allegations” in the indictment and "is looking forward to his day in court."