Monday October 17, 2016
Three men accused of plotting to target Somali immigrants in a diverse western Kansas community are to make their first federal court appearances.
Curtis Wayne Allen, Patrick Eugene Stein and Gavin Wayne Wright are charged in a complaint unsealed Friday with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction. Online court records show they're to appear Monday morning in a Wichita courtroom.
The complaint says the men are members of a small militia group calling itself "the Crusaders," and that its members espouse sovereign citizen, anti-government, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant extremist beliefs.
Prosecutors allege the men planned to detonate truck bombs around a small Garden City apartment complex where about 120 Somali residents live. Authorities say the men talked of attacking area churches that helped settle refugees and get them jobs.