Florida man gets 3 years for targeting and threatening BLM activist

A Florida man, Daniel McMahon, calling himself “the Antifa hunter” was on Monday sentenced to over three years in prison for cyberstalking and threatening a Black Lives Matter activist and another North Carolina woman.

Antifa is the loosely-organized antifascist movement in the United States.

Prior to McMahon’s conviction, the Associated Press reports he had a history of targeting and harassing people who have opposed his White supremacist views on social media.

The 32-year-old pleaded guilty in April to using social media to threaten a Black activist who was running for office in Charlottesville and also threatening to rape the autistic daughter of the aforementioned woman for partaking in protests against White supremacy.

The Black activist, identified as Don Gathers, was informed of McMahon’s threats by the FBI. After Gathers announced he was no longer running for office, McMahon, who used a pseudonym, “Jack Corbin”, to cyberstalk his victims, responded on social media with “Hail Victory!.”

Gathers had been accused of “attacking” a member of a White supremacist group by McMahon. The latter suggested a “diversity of tactics” be taken against Gathers – which authorities understood to be violence, the Associated Press reports.

According to the victim in a statement during his sentencing, McMahon “cultivated a culture of fear and chaos” among her group of activists. “There is seemingly nothing that Daniel McMahon will not do in the name of white supremacy,” she said.

Gathers also addressed McMahon during the sentencing and spoke about forgiving him. He, however, did not stop there.

“But today is not that day,” Gathers said. “I despise all that you and others like you represent.”

The North Carolina woman reached out authorities to report McMahon after his arrest, saying she received hundreds of threatening messages from the convict, including describing how he was going to sexually assault her autistic daughter. Prior to McMahon’s arrest, he also Googled: “sex with autistic girls”, court filings revealed, according to the Associated Press.

“Only a deeply disturbed individual would do this, a monster,” said the woman. “I will never feel completely safe about my child again.”

A search on McMahon’s laptop also uncovered several White supremacist and racially violent content, such as photos of dead Black men, including that of Trayvon Marton after he was fatally shot in 2012. He also had photos of James Fields, the White supremacist known for the infamous Charlottesville car attack.

He also had a folder which contained information on his targets as well as their relations. Over 200 files labeled “owned” to signify he had satisfactorily harassed a victim were also found, the Associated Press reports.

McMahon’s attorney, Jessica Phillips, asked the judge for a one-and-half year sentence for her client and also take into consideration the time he had served since his arrest in September 2019. She said McMahon regretted his actions, claiming it was spurred by mental health disorder, alcohol abuse and a “lack of social stability.”

“While he did not realize the impact of his words at the time, he certainly does now,” Phillips said, according to the Associated Press.