Patriot Front Member Joffre Cross Pleads Guilty to Federal Gun Charge
A member of the white nationalist group Patriot Front聽has pleaded guilty in Texas to federal charges of illegally possessing guns and ammunition.
Sentencing for 33-year-old Joffre James Cross III聽is scheduled for May 27 in Houston.
Cross entered the guilty plea on Feb. 5 in U.S. District Court nearly a year after federal officials searched his home and found a 聽and approximately 2,200 rounds of ammunition.
Investigators also found in the house a self-assembled .45 caliber pistol and two homemade AR-15-style rifles and an AR-10-style rifle, none of which had serial numbers. These weapons are sometimes 聽because they cannot be traced.
Investigators also seized a lower receiver for a gun, which houses the mechanical parts for a firearm, including the pieces that project the bullet.
He faces a maximum of 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. Cross is being held in federal custody pending sentencing.
Federal prosecutors are seeking to seize the homemade weapons.
Prior arrests
Cross is聽a former private in the Army鈥檚 U.S. 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He聽spent five years in federal prison after being convicted in April 2008 of distribution of controlled substances.
In that case, Cross and a co-defendant were charged with stealing syringes containing morphine and the anti-anxiety drug diazepam.
That conviction made it illegal for Cross to have guns or ammunition.
Police in Houston arrested Cross in February 2019, charging him with being a felon in possession of a firearm and body armor 鈥� Kevlar ballistic helmets and ceramic plate carriers.
Cross has pleaded not guilty to the state charges. A state court judge on Feb. 18 postponed Cross鈥� trial until June.
Extremist Ties
Patriot Front is a white nationalist group that broke away from Vanguard America after the deadly 鈥淯nite the Right鈥� rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on Aug. 12, 2017.
Vanguard America, which helped organize the gathering, became nationally known after the arrest of James Alex Fields of Maumee, Ohio, now 22, who marched with the group that day and was convicted of driving his car into a crowd of counterprotesters after the rally, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
Cross鈥檚 Facebook page shows connections with affiliates of The Right Stuff, a white nationalist podcast network.
On multiple occasions, Cross shared posts and episode links of The Right Stuff聽podcast 鈥淔ash the Nation.鈥� Antisemitic slurs and photos of Nazi paraphernalia dotted posts on Cross鈥� account on the Russian social media site VK.
Cross also has ties to the Aryan Renaissance Society, a white supremacist group with connections to the racist skinhead scene of the 1990s.
Aryan Renaissance Society聽and Ken Reed, one of its leaders, organized protests over recent years that brought together racists聽(including members of Atomwaffen Division)聽through its聽affiliate group,聽White Lives Matter.
Cross was seen at a speech by alt-right frontman Richard Spencer聽at Texas A&M in December 2016, providing security along with other white supremacists.
Cross is an associate of white supremacist , and has posted online about connections to multiple extremist groups.
Fears is currently in prison in Texas, serving a five-year sentence after pleading guilty to assault on a family member, impeding breathing. The charge聽stemmed from an incident where he choked his girlfriend.
Fears, his younger brother, Colton Fears, and a friend, Tyler Tenbrink, drove from Texas to Florida to attend a speech by white nationalist leader Richard Spencer at the University of Florida.
Police arrested Tenbrink and Colton Fears after the speech, when a confrontation broke out between Spencer supporters and protestors.
聽to firing a shot at the group. He鈥檚 serving a 15-year sentence in a Florida prison.
, who drove the car during the confrontation, pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to attempted first-degree murder. He is serving five years聽in prison in Florida.
Photo illustration by 人兽性交
