A transgender activist who was allegedly part of a thwarted terrorist plot targeting several locations across Los Angeles asked a federal judge to be sent to a women’s jail pending arraignment in January.
Zachary Aaron Page, a biological man and suspected member of the left-wing Turtle Island Liberation Front, requested during her first courtroom appearance in the terrorism case to be held in a female-only facility.
Page and three alleged co-conspirators are facing federal conspiracy charges, plus one count each of possessing a destructive device, for their suspected roles in planning a series of coordinated bombings against targets in the Los Angeles area.
The case was continued to Friday for a detention hearing, as Page seeks to avoid pretrial detention in a male-designated detention center.
Audrey Ilene Carroll, Dante Gaffield, and Tina Lai, alongside Page, are accused of plotting to commit a large-scale terrorist attack in the name of “decolonization.”
Their organization, the Turtle Island Liberation Front, is a cohort of pro-Palestinian and Native American activists formed against so-called “fascist colonizers.” Its members believe that Turtle Island, an indigenous name for North America, and the Palestinian territory are “stolen land” occupied by “colonist settlers” that must be taken back.
Posters found at Carroll’s residence said “Death to America” and “Long Live Turtle Island and Palestine,” according to images included in the criminal complaint.
Investigative journalist Andy Ngo, who extensively covers antifa activity, described the Turtle Island Liberation Front as “an antifa-style cell.”
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE TURTLE ISLAND LIBERATION FRONT
The sophisticated scheme allegedly involved the defendants donning black bloc, communicating through burner phones, paying for bombmaking materials in cash, and even “placing a small pebble in a shoe to alter [one’s] natural gait” to obfuscate their identities and evade law enforcement.
According to the FBI affidavit, the defendants used codenames in an encrypted Signal chat called “Order of the Black Lotus,” in which Gaffield went by the alias “Nomad,” Lai as “Kickwhere,” Carroll as “Asiginaak,” and Page as “Ash Kerrigan” or “AK.”
According to probable cause statements, investigators found a handwritten document, titled “OPERATION MIDNIGHT SUN,” in Page’s house that laid out plans to plant backpacks containing homemade pipe bombs at multiple sites in Southern California.
Officials said the operational guide identified five “marks,” with more possible “if enough comrades” assembled. Deportation officers and government vehicles belonging to Immigration and Customs Enforcement were named as possible targets.
According to authorities, the explosive devices were supposed to detonate simultaneously on New Year’s Eve, when fireworks would mask the sound.
Carroll, Page, Lai, and Gaffield were apprehended over the weekend, allegedly en route to test the explosives in the desert.
Evidence photos attached to the charging documents depict a desert campsite and what appears to be bomb-making materials strewn across two folding tables. The suspects “brought bomb-making components to the campsite, including various sizes of PVC pipes, suspected potassium nitrate, charcoal, charcoal powder, sulfur powder, and material to be used as fuses, among others,” the affidavit said.
DOJ THWARTS ‘HORRIFIC’ NEW YEAR’S EVE TERRORIST PLOT IN LA BY LEFT-WING, PRO-PALESTINIAN GROUP
Micah James Legnon, another suspected member of the Turtle Island Liberation Front who identifies as transgender, was arrested by federal authorities in New Iberia, Louisiana, for allegedly stockpiling weapons, gathering tactical gear, and transporting firearms in preparation for a separate attack.
Legnon, a self-identified Satanist, used the online aliases “Kateri” and “Black Witch,” according to Ngo. On social media, Legnon has shared content calling for the murder of “Nazis.”
