Bayside Neo-Nazi Sentenced To Nearly 5 Years In Prison: Feds

BAYSIDE, QUEENS — A Bayside man who fantasized about a "racial holy war" and glorified attacks against Jewish and Black communities was sentenced to nearly five years in prison on Tuesday after pleading guilty to buying firearms without serial numbers, federal prosecutors said.

This January, Joseph Miner, 30, pled guilty to buying assault rifles in 2020 that didn't have serial numbers, which makes the weapons virtually untraceable. Now, Miner will be imprisoned for 57 months on illegal weapons offenses, prosecutors said.

Although Miner was arrested in a sting operation last May, authorities began investigating him at the end of 2019, after finding social media posts where he supported violence against Black people and Jews, according to prosecutors.

Miner had discussed past attacks on Jewish communities online and praised the 2019 deadly stabbing at a rabbi's home in Rockland County during Hanukkah, calling it "exciting," according to a detention memo filed last year in Brooklyn federal court.

"I'm pretty fearless at this point I yearn for the next Cville," he posted in 2019, in an apparent reference to the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Prosecutors also found photos on Instagram that showed Miner giving Nazi salutes alongside captions that disparaged Jews, women, and Black people.

Although it was unclear whether Miner had specific plans for a mass shooting — at times he told prosecutors that he didn't have interest in carrying out an attack himself — authorities found social media posts where he glorified racial and ethnic violence.

Miner had written about "martyring" himself, “go[ing] out in a blaze of glory” in a mass-shooting attack, or "forming a well trained incel hit squad," using a term that stands for "involuntary celibate," prosecutors said.

Authorities also found posts where he advocated for a "racial holy war."

"Miner has embraced an extremely violent ideology and contemplated committing acts of terrorism," U.S. Attorney Richard P. Donoghue wrote in a memo requesting that Miner be detained pending trial in 2020. "In his own social media postings, he has glorified acts of murder and terrorism against racial, ethnic and religious groups. More ominously, he has ruminated about engaging in such violent conduct himself."

On Tuesday, Acting U.S. Attorney Jacquelyn M. Kasulis, who announced Miners' sentence, said that the sentence "holds Miner accountable for his knowing purchase of a firearm that could not be traced because its serial number had been removed."

She also commended law enforcement for addressing the "serious threat" of illegal gun possession, alluding to the FBI-led operation that led to Miner's arrest.