Barrett Lancaster Brown, a Dallas-based activist with ties to hacking group Anonymous, pled guilty to several charges April 29. Specifically, Brown admitted to obstructing the execution of a search warrant and making threats toward FBI agents online, among other reduced charges.
Brown was first taken into custody over two years ago after he threatened the life of an FBI agent, according to the Associated Press.
Court documents obtained by Breitbart Texas accused Brown of “transmitting messages through the Internet on his Twitter.com account and his YouTube.com account, threatening to shoot and injure agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
Brown carried out the threats through an effort he started in 2010 called “Project PM.”
“Project PM was an IRC/Wiki-based blogger network created to allow Brown and those he associated with to share information and achieve or pursue certain goals,” an indictment stated.
In September 2012, Brown began broadcasting threatening messages to a particular FBI agent and others online. One message reportedly posted to his Twitter account said, “A dead man can’t leak stuff… Illegally shoot the son of a b***h.”
Many of the tweets sent out by Brown included the hashtag #Anonymous.
The messages suggest that Brown targeted one particular FBI agent for apparently threatening to “lock up” his mother. Brown reportedly gave no background or reason as to why his mother was an apparent target of the FBI.
In a subsequent self-made YouTube video, Brown called an FBI agent “a f*****g chicken shit little f****t c**k sucker…a criminal, who is involved in criminal conspiracy.” He continued, “That’s why the [agent’s] life is over, but when I say his life is over, I don’t say I am going to kill him, but I am going to ruin his life and look into his f*****g kids…any armed officials of the U.S. government, particularly the FBI, will be regarded as potential Zeta assassination squads, and as the FBI and DPD know…I’m armed, that I come from a military family, that I was taught to shoot by a Vietnam vet and by my father a master hunter…I will shoot all of them and kill them if they come.”
In the comments section of the video, Brown asked viewers to send any information on the targeted FBI agent to his personal email address so that “the FBI can watch me look up his kids.”
Brown was also accused, in a separate indictment, of concealing two laptop computers containing records and digital data “with the intent to impede, obstruct, and influence the investigation and proper administration” of matters related to March 2012 search warrants.
The two laptops were ultimately found hidden in the northern Texas home of Brown’s friend, only identified in court documents as “KM.”
Brown’s case has not been without certain left-of-center media fanfare, however. Breitbart Texas Managing Director Brandon Darby reported in 2013 an example of Rolling Stone Magazine spinning the incident to demonstrate the FBI as not acting in a “humane” manner in response to Brown’s threat. The article’s headline further sought to diminish the crimes Brown plead guilty to.
Brown Indictment 2012 by BreitbartTexas
Brown Indictment 2013 by BreitbartTexas
Follow Kristin Tate on Twitter @KristinBTate