The man who had been building a “white private community” in the mountains of Fremont County has been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to a federal weapons charge, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado announced Friday.
Chad Edward Keith, 42, of Colorado Springs, was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison for possessing firearms after previously being convicted of a felony, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Investigators during a search of Keith’s properties also found white supremacist and Nazi paraphernalia and a flyer with congresspeople and senators with images of the Star of David on their foreheads that “were suggestive of firearms bullseye targets.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Keith in May for possessing 11 firearms, including rifles and shotguns, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition at both his Colorado Springs residence and a property in Cotopaxi, where, according to a complaint filed by an FBI investigator assigned to a Joint Terrorism Task Force, he had planned to build the “white private community” to teach weapons skills, white supremacist ideology and anti-Semitic curriculum to teenagers.
Keith had previously been convicted of a felony explosives offense, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In 2003, he pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of possessing an unregistered firearm — a destructive device. He was sentenced to 48 months in prison.
After Keith’s prison term, he will also serve 36 months of supervised release.
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