Minnesota man pleads guilty to attempting to sell weapons to Hamas
A New Brighton, Minn., man who admitted being part of the far-right Boogaloo Bois militia group on Tuesday pleaded guilty to a federal terrorism charge.
Michael Robert Solomon, 31, got on the FBI's radar last year, when he was seen carrying a gun at the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis.
Solomon admitted trying to sell weapons to a member of the Middle East militant group Hamas, who turned out to be an FBI informant.
Solomon said in court that he offered to sell the purported Hamas member gun silencers that he made in his garage as well as auto sears, devices that convert a semi-automatic rifle such as an AR-15 to fully automatic.
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In pleading guilty to one count of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, Solomon told Judge Michael Davis that he and other Boogaloo Bois had hoped to use the money to purchase more firearms and body armor and quote “keep prepping.”
His co-defendant, Benjamin Ryan Teeter, 23, of North Carolina, pleaded guilty to the same charge in December.
They face up to 20 years in prison.
In another case related to the Boogaloo movement, Ivan Harrison Hunter of Boerne, Texas, is charged with shooting at a Minneapolis police station as it burned during rioting. Hunter has pleaded not guilty.
In a more recent case, Michael Paul Dahlager, 27, of St. Cloud, Minn., is charged with machine gun possession after allegedly scouting out tactical positions at the Minnesota Capitol during a pro-Trump rally in December.