Judge Raymond P. Moore place the 235-month sentence for Richard Holzer, 28, and imposed a 15-year term of supervised release.
Throughout the Treaty trial, Moore expressed harsh criticism of Holzer’s previous statements to undercover FBI agents and social networking accounts — describing Holzer’s life as filled with violent and hateful vision.
“It is among the most vulgar, aggressive, wicked crimes that can be committed against an entire set of persons,” Moore stated.
Holzer’s defense team contended that his suffering of fetal alcohol syndrome affected his development into maturity and led to his”unmet and overpowering need to seem more significant than he is.”
The defense asked the judge for a shorter sentence for Holzer to benefit from post-prison rehab for his radical ideas and also to have an incentive to prepare for life after incarceration. They also said that Holzer no longer held the supremacist-like beliefs which led him to plan the bombing at Temple Emanuel Synagogue in Pueblo.
The Temple Emanuel plot was among 61 anti-semitic harassment and vandalism instances the Anti-Defamation League Mountain States Region monitored in 2019.
“The notion that he’s turned some corner is fantasy,” Moore stated before record the swastikas seen in his jail cell and supremacist symbolism from his authorized letters from jail.
Holzer refused the chance to make an impression in his trial.
“About two-and-a-half decades back, my first day as U.S. Attorney took me into a vigil for victims from the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue assault,” explained U.S. Attorney Jason Dunn at a statement. “Today, my last day at the workplace, we have sentenced the extremist responsible to the attempted bombing of the Temple Emanuel Synagogue in Pueblo.”
Back in October, Holzer pleaded guilty for trying to prevent people from exercising their faith with an explosive or fire and trying to ruin a building used in interstate commerce in a plea bargain with prosecutors.
Holzer was detained Nov. 1, 2019, after getting two fake pipe bombs and 14 sticks of dynamite from undercover FBI agents he planned to use at the Temple Emanuel.
One agent posed as a white supremacist and achieved to Holzer online after viewing his social media articles boosting white supremacy and violence, according to the facts agreed to by both sides as part of the plea bargain.
Following his arrest, Holzer said the”event planned for tonight could define me as a person who would die for his people,” according to a statement by the Colorado U.S. Attorney’s office.
Temple Emanuel is the next oldest synagogue in Colorado. It was developed in 1900 mostly by descendants of immigrants from central and eastern Europe.
