Two Ku Klux Klan members who also somehow managed to serve as correctional officers for the Florida Department of Corrections were both convicted in a plot to kill a black inmate upon the man’s release, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Tuesday.
As News4Jax reports, David Elliot Moran, 49, and Charles Thomas Newcomb, 45, were each found guilty of one count by a Columbia County jury for plotting to kill the inmate over some fight that he had with a third guard, identified as 27-year-old Thomas Jordan Driver, who is also a member of the KKK.
Driver already pleaded guilty in March to one count of conspiracy to commit murder and has been sentenced to four years in prison.
At the time of the murder plot, Driver and Moran were both active correctional officers at the Florida Department of Corrections. Newcomb was a former correctional officer.
“These men had positions of trust, which they violated when they conspired to kill a former inmate, and we worked closely with our law enforcement partners to ensure they are held accountable for their crimes,” Homeland Security Investigation Tampa Special Agent in Charge James C. Spero told the news station.
The three men were arrested back in 2015 after an investigation by the North Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force, spearheaded by the FBI and HSI with help from other federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies.
“These Klansmen plotted to murder a black inmate after he was released from prison, but swift action and clever investigative tactics on behalf of investigators foiled their plot and may have saved a life,” Attorney General Bondi said. “We will continue to work daily to ensure the KKK or any other hate-filled organization is unable to inflict violence on the citizens of our great state.”
Driver handed a picture of the inmate that they wanted to attack over to an FBI informant who had managed to infiltrate the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Driver told the agent that he had a fight with the inmate, who remains unidentified, and added that he and Moran wanted the inmate, who was out on supervised release, “6 feet under.”
Over the next few months, the FBI said that its agent met with all three men to discuss how to kill the target, including potential plans to shoot him during a car ride or inject him with insulin to make the death look like an accident.
Looks like those racist dummies had been watching too many crime shows.
The FBI even went so far as to stage a homicide scene, taking pictures of the former inmate to make it look as if he had been murdered.
“Photographs were shown to each of the men. They expressed happiness. They shook the source’s hand, and the source even went to the point of asking is this what you wanted,” said state prosecutor Nick Cox.
The FBI took the former inmate into protective custody while the agency infiltrated the Klan and investigated the case, ultimately arresting all three losers.
According to the New York Post, Moran and Newcomb both face up to 30 years in prison. A sentencing date has not yet been set.
Read more at News4Jax and the New York Post.