A Pennsylvania right-wing extremist who hosts an anti-government podcast called the “Alt-Right Armory,” on which he has encouraged listeners to target “not only police, but ‘legislators, lobbyists, and left-wing billionaires’ for assassination with explosives,” could face up to 30 years in prison after being charged with having “amassed an arsenal of fully automatic machine guns,” The Daily Beast reported Friday, citing court documents.
According to arrest records filed by prosecutors, Joseph Paul Berger, a 32-year-old Navy veteran who lives with his parents in Bethlehem Township, was taken into custody on Feb. 7 by federal agents who say they found 13 unregistered machine guns and 12 illegal silencers in a locked room in the basement of the family’s home. The cache included, among other models, eight AK-style rifles, two C308 .308 Winchester caliber rifles, two MP5K submachine guns, and one RPK-style machine gun, The Beast reported.
“The weapons were test-fired by a lab expert with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), who ‘determined that each gun was modified, after purchase, to make it capable of fully automatic fire,’ the filing says,” noted the Daily Beast.
Prosecutors have filed a motion against releasing Berger on bail over his violent rhetoric, highlighting the pilot episode of the ‘Alt-Right Armory’ in which the defendant said that a “white man with a rifle can be very dangerous to the system indeed if he has the right motivation.” He then “extolls the values of police murderer Eric Frein and fantasizes about the cost that could be incurred by a group of people like Frein,” the motion continues, emphasizing that Frein in 2014 murdered a Pennsylvania state trooper in an ambush before going on the run. He was subsequently captured, convicted, and sentenced to death, according to The Beast.
Berger’s father, Joseph Raymond Berger, 67, was arrested along with his son, local station WFMZ reported. The two stored the guns in a locked basement room to which only they had access, according to prosecutors. If convicted, they each face a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.
