21-year-old William Lee Falkner was in a federal courtroom Monday as U.S. prosecutors claim he was central in a plot to attack the UFC Fight on the White House lawn, in an effort to sow chaos in the country and lead to the overthrow of the United States government.
Falkner was arrested Friday morning by Mason County Sheriff’s deputies while “traveling,” according to U.S District Attorney Niel Floyd.
“If it wasn’t for the intervention of law enforcement, I do believe they could have carried out maybe not the plans that they had ultimately hoped to achieve, but certainly they could’ve caused a mass casualty event,” Floyd said.
The plan, according to prosecutors, was to fly drones over the UFC stage and detonate them, sending people running, where other suspects would be waiting with guns. Court documents detail Falkner’s role in obtaining the drones, describing what munitions to use, and using fiber optic cables tethered to the airborne machines so signals wouldn’t get jammed.
“Let’s say 250/ drone and you want 5 drones that would be 1250+ chipping from my contact who I’ve known since middle school and used to run guns and drugs with this guy. Solid dude,” read a group chat message that prosecutors allege is from Falkner.
Five suspects were arrested before the UFC event; Falkner is the first of two others who were arrested since Friday.
“It’s one thing to say that ‘I’m talking online and I know a guy and I have connections. It’s another thing to actually have the connections and put in motion the production of drones,” says U.S District Attorney Niel Floyd.
Prosecutors were first tipped off by the mother of another suspect, Tycen Proper, who lives in Ohio. His mother described the group chat as “ultra-religious,” “anti-government,” and “specifically citing grievances about government corruption, the handling of the Epstein files, data centers taking up all the water in communities, and other government actions.”
“The larger conspiracy that’s already out there wasn’t just for the attack on the UFC event,” Floyd said. “This group of individuals were planning a much broader conspiracy to do multiple attacks. It’s just the UFC is the one that caused the action on the part of law enforcement.”
For that reason, Floyd said it was important to the FBI to arrest Falkner ahead of the U.S. government.
According to court documents, Falkner reacted to the arrests of other suspects in an Instagram message with someone outside of the group.
“My boss got picked up, he is in custody,” one message read.
“In the article I sent you, it mentioned the involvement of everyone but me and the people you already know. Because we took precautions,” read another message.
The day after the messages were sent, Falkner was arrested. Prosecutors say Falkner was only in the group chat for about a week, but say he was “all in” on the plan, and prosecutors are now investigating other forms of possible communication.
U.S. Court Magistrate Grady Leupold ruled that Falkner be held in custody before his trial due to the severity of the allegations. In making his case for release, Falkner said, “I am fully aware of the seriousness of the charges,” and said, “I will take it on the chin, whatever happens, happens.”
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