Benjamin Ryan Teeter, 22, entered a guilty plea to conspiracy to provide material support and resources, namely property, services and weapons, to Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization.
A Minnesota man who federal prosecutors say is a member of an extremist group known as the “Boogaloo Bois” pleaded guilty in a Minneapolis court on Wednesday to federal terrorism charges.
Benjamin Ryan Teeter, 22, entered a guilty plea to conspiracy to provide material support and resources, namely property, services and weapons, to Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization. Prosecutors said a sentencing date will be scheduled at a later time.
Teeter and a co-defendant spoke with an FBI confidential informant over the summer, officials said. The pair thought the confidential informant was a member of Hamas, the Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist group, according to prosecutors. In recorded conversations, Teeter and his co-defendant said Hamas and the Boogaloo Bois shared similar anti-government views and sought to employ themselves as mercenaries for the group to help fund the Boogaloo movement, court documents obtained by WECT6 said.
Teeter and his co-defendant later met an undercover FBI agent, whom they believed to be a more senior member of Hamas, and offered to build firearms suppressors and other weapons for the group, according to court documents obtained by WECT6. They believed the suppressors they sold went to Hamas to be used overseas to attack Israeli and U.S. forces, according to court documents filed by prosecutors.
Teeter and his co-defendant were charged in September.
“This case highlights the real threat posed by domestic violent extremists who self-radicalize and threaten to violently attack others opposed to their views, with little or no warning,” said Michael Paul, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Minneapolis field office. “Preventing terrorist attacks is the FBI’s number one priority and the primary mission of our Joint Terrorism Task Forces. The FBI and its task force partners will persist in using every investigative tool available to identify, assess and disrupt those willing to compromise the safety of our neighbors and communities.”
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