Hate Group May Have Planned Melbourne Attack
By Space Coast Daily // May 9, 2012
FBI Raid
KISSIMMEE, FLORIDA – Ten people have been arrested in Osecola County in the last six days on hate crime charges and may have plotted an armed attack in Mebourne.
Each of the individuals arrested is believed to be connected to a white supremacy group and one is listed as residing in Cocoa.
Seven of the arrests stem from a FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force and Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation operation over the weekend.
FBI agents believe the group was practicing paramilitary maneuvers and stockpiling AK-47s weapons for several planned attacks.
Agents think the suspects arrested are part of a group called the American Front, an anti-Semitic, white supremacist organization training in Osceola County.
The group reportedly was considering disrupting a number of social events, including a rival organization’s May 1 protest in Melbourne.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, two members of the group — Marcus Faella, 39, of St. Cloud and his wife Patricia Faella, 36, – were arrested Friday. A third member, Mark McGowan of Cocoa, 29, was arrested over the weekend along with four others.
The Faellas and McGowan were charged with instructing another person in the use of firearms or explosives while knowing that they would be used “in, or in furtherance of, a civil disorder in the United States,” according to information posted on the Southern Poverty Law Center website.
Others arrested include Jennifer McGowan of Kissimmee, 25; Diane Stevens of Kissimmee, 28; Kent McClelland of St. Cloud, 22; Paul Jackson of St., Cloud, 25; Christopher Brooks of St. Cloud, 27; Richard Stockdale of St. Cloud, 23; and Dustin Perry of Kissimmee, 21.
The American Front was started in the late 1980s and has been associated with random violence since then. The group was revitalized in 2007 under David Lynch of California. Lynch was murdered by an unknown attacker in Sacramento in March 2011.
