KEENE, NH – Christopher Cantwell, aka “the Crying Nazi,” headed to trial for allegedly making online threats against a member of a white supremacist group, sent police dozens of emails before his arrest in an attempt to report on his alleged victim.
A motion recently filed by prosecutors in the United States District Court in Concord shows Cantwell attempted to cooperate with police in order to put his alleged victim in legal jeopardy. Cantwell even called the child protective service agency in the alleged victim’s state.
“(B)asically, I’m looking to make this guy uncomfortable is the truth of the matter. I think he’s bad for my cause and so I said ‘what can I do about this.’ And so I called you,” Cantwell is heard saying in a recorded message to the child protective service agency.
Cantwell reportedly sent Keene police more than 50 emails between June and September last year about his confrontations with the alleged victim, essentially handing investigators evidence that would be used to pursue the federal criminal charges.
“Not once in these communications did Cantwell provide law enforcement with the whole story,” Assistant U.S.Attorney Anna Krasinski wrote.
Cantwell, 39, is being held without bail on charges of interstate extortion and making threatening interstate communications. He recently asked to be released from the Strafford County House of Corrections where he is being held pending his trial.
The heart of the case is Cantwell’s relationship with members of the Bowl Patrol, a white supremacist group that was initially friendly with Cantwell until he decided he did not trust them, Krasinski wrote.
“Cantwell began to believe that the members of Bowl Patrol were ‘Jews trying to make Nazis look bad,’” Krasinski wrote.
The Bowl Patrol takes its name from Dylan Roof’s bowl haircut. Roof is the mass murderer who shot and killed nine African Americans during a church service in Charleston, South Carolina.
Members of the group started to prank call his internet radio show, and Cantwell wrote to Keene police that he was afraid he would go out of business. Cantwell then found identifying information on one of the Bowl Patrol members and tried using that member to get the identifying information on one of the group’s leaders, according to court records.
Cantwell threatened to report this member’s alleged drug use to child protective services, and when that failed, he threatened to rape the man’s wife in front of their children, according to the charges. Cantwell also threatened on his radio program to have one of his “incel” listeners rape the woman, according to court records.
“Incels,” are young men who claim to be involuntarily celibate and they have been linked to mass killings, usually targeting women.
Throughout his confrontations with the Bowl Patrol last summer Cantwell kept emailing police, and he was eventually interviewed by FBI agents in October. That is when agents showed him the threatening messages he sent to the alleged victim, according to court records.
“When confronted with the messages in an interview with the FBI on October 24, 2019, Cantwell reviewed the exchange and confirmed that he sent the messages. Cantwell added, ‘I’m a little nervous that I’m being asked about this,” because someone told him that it was ‘extortion,’” Krasinski wrote.
Cantwell was arrested at his Keene home earlier this year by federal law enforcement agents. Investigators found 17 guns, including one kept in an unlocked box hidden under a car parked in the driveway, as well as numerous vials of liquid in his refrigerator. According to court records, the vials contained illegal anabolic steroids.
He has a history of drug abuse and violence, according to court records. Cantwell earned his moniker as the “Crying Nazi” after the Vice documentary on the “Unite the Right” rally in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia showed Cantwell crying when he learned there was a warrant out for his arrest.
Cantwell was convicted on two counts of assault and battery for using pepper spray on protestors at the “Unite the Right” protests where white supremacists gathered to oppose the removal of Confederate monuments. Cantwell was ordered to stay out of Virginia for five years as part of his sentence.
The “Unite the Right” rally saw one counter-protester murdered when white supremacists James Alex Fields Jr. drove his car into a crowd, killing Heather Heyer. Fields pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence.
