A 28-year-old Reseda man has been found guilty of attempting to bomb a white supremacist rally in Long Beach.
Mark Steven Domingo, a U.S. Army veteran, was charged with providing material support to terrorism and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. A federal jury issued a guilty verdict on Wednesday.
According to The Los Angeles Times, Domingo authored several online posts in which he expressed support for destabilizing the United States government through acts of terror.
“It’s not about winning the civil war; it’s about weakening America and giving them a taste of the terror they gladly spread all over the world,” he wrote in one post.
His extremist content caught the attention of federal authorities. In March, an informant made contact with Domingo and began passing information on his developing plots back to investigators.
According to prosecutors, Domingo considered a number of targets for a potential attack, including houses of worship and police and military infrastructure, before deciding to detonate an IED at a rally for the United Patriots National Front, a white supremacist organization that planned a protest in Long Beach’s Bluff Park in 2019.
Domingo asked an accomplice—an undercover FBI informant at the time—to invite a bomb maker into the scheme. Domingo was arrested in April 2019 after taking delivery of what he thought was an improvised explosive device, or IED, from another undercover law enforcement officer posing as the bomb maker. The device in question was a nail bomb.
Domingo also planned to target a Huntington Beach demonstration against California’s immigration policies. He also considered detonating IEDs on the Santa Monica Pier, according to court documents.
The Times reported that Domingo hoped to leave “hundreds and maybe thousands of U.S. citizens injured.”
When asked by an informant what he would do after causing such carnage, Domingo is said to have replied, “Then the fun starts.”
Domingo potentially faces life in prison. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Nov. 1.