MINNEAPOLIS — Sentencing is Thursday for a member of the Boogaloo Bois extremist group who has pleaded guilty to charges in connection with a plot to leverage street unrest after the 2020 police killing of George Floyd in hopes of raising money for its anti-government movement.
Michael Robert Solomon, 32, of New Brighton, admitted in May 2021 to selling silencers and other firearm components in 2020 to people he believed were members of the Hamas terror group but who turned out to be FBI informants.
Solomon was one of four men charged since September 2020 to have been identified as members of the Boogaloo Bois, an armed anti-government group that rose in prominence amid the 2020 protests over COVID-19 shutdowns and police brutality.
In December 2020, a guilty plea came from co-defendant Benjamin Ryan Teeter, a 23-year-old who traveled from North Carolina in response to a Facebook post from Solomon calling for fellow Boogaloo Bois members to join him in participating in the protests after Floyd's death. Teeter is scheduled to be sentenced on April 7.
Solomon has said he was aware of five Boogaloo Bois members who traveled to Minneapolis after his Facebook post to provide armed security for Black Lives Matter protesters. He also estimated that about 120 people were part of a Minnesota-related Boogaloo Bois Facebook group in 2020.
After the riots abated, Solomon said, the group began kicking around ideas to raise money for their cause. They connected with an FBI informant posing as a member of the Hamas terror group and agreed to supply silencers and devices that convert rifles into fully automatic weapons.
While pleading guilty, Solomon told U.S. District Judge Michael Davis that the Boogaloo Bois discussed buying a training facility in South America.
Solomon and Teeter were also accused of plotting to bomb a courthouse in Minnesota before changing their target to an unspecified courthouse in the Twin Cities before their arrests.
When discussing future targets for the Boogaloo Bois, according to prosecutors, Solomon expressed a desire to kill politicians and media executives.
In a presentence court filing in September, prosecutors argued for Solomon to receive a 20-year prison sentence followed by a lifetime on supervised release.
"His willingness to aid in a plot to blow up a courthouse, his spoken desire to assassinate politicians and journalists, and his provision of silencers and auto-sears to individuals he believed were members of Hamas for use against American service members all speak to the danger represented and the appropriateness of the requested sentence," the filing read.
