What we know about two SoCal men arrested in alleged plot to attack White House UFC fight
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Two men from the Inland Empire have been arrested and charged in what federal officials described as a plot to kill government officials and others at the UFC cage-fighting show staged at the White House last weekend.The two Southern Californians are among five co-conspirators arrested across the country in the murder scheme that authorities said appeared to have been motivated by antigovernment ideology.Here’s what we know so far about the men and the plot:Michael Alan Thomas, 32, was arrested in San Bernardino County’s Piñon Hills on Saturday, charged with conspiracy to commit murder, according to officials and records from the U.S.Department of Justice.
Bryan Omar Roa, 24, was arrested the same day about 50 miles south in Riverside County’s Calimesa, also charged with conspiracy to commit murder.According to the complaint filed in federal court in California, Roa and Thomas had been in touch virtually, but had met up at least once in the last month to practice marksmanship and tactics.
1 2 1.Bryan Bryan Omar Roa, 24, was arrested Saturday in Calimesa, Calif.
2.Michael Alan Thomas, 32, was held Saturday in Piñon Hills, Calif.
(Department of Justice) In messages exchanged on an encrypted messaging application called SimpleX, Thomas and Roa communicated in a chatroom titled “Vanguard of the Old Republic,” according to the complaint.There, Thomas told Roa he was “up the hill behind LA,” clarifying he was was Piñon Hills, to which Roa responded that he was in Yucaipa.
Yucaipa is located right next to Calimesa, where officials said Roa was arrested.The two men were linked to the plot about a week before the UFC fight was scheduled, after a relative of an alleged co-conspirator alerted authorities.
That co-conspirator, Tycen C.Proper, of Danville, Ohio, identified Roa and Thomas as part of the plot, and shared social media usernames, according to the cri...