ALBANY — A Gloversville man tied to white supremacist rhetoric pleaded guilty Thursday to allegedly hatching an armed robbery scheme during the fall.
Luke Kenna (pronounced Ken-eh), 44, could face upwards of $250,000 in fines and spend more than three years in prison. Before his Dec. 15 sentencing, he will remain detained.
The elf-locked man — one of three alleged co-conspirators — was originally slated to go to trial on Aug. 7, along with accused Brian Tierney of Virginia. Michael Brown, Jr. of Pennsylvania pleaded guilty in June and awaits sentencing in November.
The matter has been handled in U.S. District Court. Judge Brenda K. Sannes presided over Kenna’s case on Thursday.
“Are you willing to give up your right to trial and the other rights I just discussed?” asked Sannes.
Kenna took a long pause before responding in a faint, deep voice: “Yes.” At one point, a box of tissues was passed down from the bench to the defendant’s table.
The Gloversville man was arrested at a traffic stop on Nov. 26 after local authorities found a ghost gun, several knives, a clad of armor and a radio jammer in his car.
Upon seizing his phone, authorities discovered an encrypted “SS Screenwriter’s Guild” group chat in which the trio — under the nicknames “Wodanaz” (Tierney), “Lt.” (Kenna) and “Doc Grimson” — used coded language to describe plans to rob Community Bank Johnstown, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Wentworth-Ping. The heist was reportedly scheduled for Jan. 6 of this year.
Kenna and Brown helped surveil the bank in mid-November while Tierney bought handgun parts, according to court documents.
In mid-November, Kenna told the group chat they had been outed by a group of anti-facist bloggers and it was likely that they were being monitored by federal authorities. He vouched to move forward with plans, regardless.
The trio have been found to hold white supremacist views, according to investigators.
“Looks like we’re getting this paper Jew money while it lasts,” Kenna wrote in a chat, court records show.
Reporters for The Daily Gazette Family of Newspapers found a trove of references to Neo-Nazi lore on Kenna’s Instagram. He has also been connected to a subsidiary of the Wolves of Vinland hate group.
Brown had run the Aryan Compartmented Elements, a neo-Nazi web channel, while also operating a “Black Market” tactical training business in Pennsylvania.
When asked about his employment history by Sannes in court, Kenna said he had worked jobs in “training,” construction and was “basically an entrepreneur.”
In a diary entry seized by authorities in November, Kenna was financially struggling around year’s end.
“It’s coming up to the end of the year and I am flat broke with nothing but a gun and a dream,” Kenna said. He added that he planned to “fulfill my destiny one way or another.”
In court, the white-bearded Kenna also revealed that he takes medication for both chronic pain and mental illness, and was hospitalized twice for the latter. Neither of these circumstances, he told the court, impacted his judgment while taking the plea deal.
Tyler A. McNeil can be reached at 518-395-3047 or tmcneil@dailygazette.net. Follow him on Facebook at Tyler A. McNeil, Daily Gazette or Twitter @TylerAMcNeil.