Member Of MA Hate Group Gets 5 Years On Child Porn Conviction

PORTLAND, ME — A Maine man with ties to a Massachusetts-based hate group was sentenced to five years in federal prison Friday after pleading guilty to child pornography charges last summer.

The Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office found in 2019 that Andrew Hazelton, 28, of Portland, ME, had sought explicit photos from a 10-year-old girl on social media. In 2021, a former employer reported Hazelton to the FBI because he feared a workplace shooting. An investigator then cited the explicit messages to the girl in a search warrant for Hazelton’s phone and uncovered dozens of downloaded videos and images depicting child pornography, prosecutors said.

"I only wish to learn from all this and put it behind me," Hazelton said during a brief statement at Friday's sentencing hearing. His lawyer said he suffered from mental health and substance abuse disorders.

NSC-131, a hate group with branches around the world that was founded by a 22-year-old Massachusetts man, expelled Hazelton as a member last May. The white nationalist extremist group said in social media posts at the time it would do more thorough background checks of its members in the future.

Earlier this month, members of NSC-131 gathered outside a Portsmouth, NH theater with a hand-lettered banner reading "Drag Queens Are Pedophiles" after learning one of the actors is a drag queen dressed as a 50s homemaker who reads books to puppets. The lead actor in the show said he had received death threats after the group targeted the show.

NSC stands for "Nationalist Social Club," according to the Anti-Defamation League, and 131 is the alphanumeric code for ACA, or Anti-Communist Action. There are chapters around the United States and in France, Hungary and Germany. Members of the group participated in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot in Washington, D.C.

Hazelton was one of at least two NSC-131 members enrolled at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. Last June, Patch reported on an online broadcast by members of NSC-131 in which the other UMass-Lowell student and Hood urged college students to bully "kids who race mix," prompting the school to launch an investigation.

Reporting from the Associated Press was used in this report.