KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Federal prosecutors announced charges against several defendants Tuesday — including a Missouri man — for a conspiracy to commit murder at the UFC Freedom 250 event last weekend at the White House.
Missouri resident Daniel K. Eskridge, 32, was arrested Monday on one count of conspiracy to commit murder.
The charges were filed in the Western District of Missouri, U.S. District Court.
Eskridge made his initial appearance before a judge on Monday. A detention and preliminary hearing is set for 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, June 18, at the federal courthouse in downtown Kansas City, Missouri.
Eskridge was appointed an attorney. He remained in custody as of Tuesday afternoon.
Online records show Eskridge lives in Hamilton, Missouri, about an hour north of Kansas City.
Court documents reveal his involvement in the conspiracy came about after federal law enforcement received a tip from the mother of a 19-year-old Ohio man who was concerned about her son’s firearms purchases and online communications.
That man, Tycen Proper, was also charged as part of the conspiracy.
Proper admitted in an interview with law enforcement that he participated in the planning of an attack, according to the affidavit, which says some members of the group began communicating with each other last March through a TikTok group called “Vanguard of the Old.”
“The members of the group stated that they wanted to protect the United States, which they believed was headed in the wrong direction,” the affidavit states. “Members of the group believed that the United States needed to be torn down so that it could be rebuilt. Some expressed a desire that people who were involved with Jeffrey Epstein should not govern the country.”
The logistics of the planned attack were discussed via Signal, an app that uses end-to-end encryption for its messaging and calling services, through a primary chat of “approximately 19 individuals" and smaller side chats, authorities said.
Messages obtained from Proper's phone show he discussed the plot with others and highlighted several lawmakers he said should be targeted because of their support for Israel, per the affidavit.
Proper told law enforcement officials that he had been planning to drive with weapons and body armor to a meet-up spot in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where the group was set to gather. He said that though he did not intend to shoot people at the White House, others in the group did, according to the affidavit.
The plan called for the use of drones that would be detonated over the north side of the White House, prompting a rushed evacuation into the line of fire of waiting snipers in an attack that Proper said was designed to “jumpstart” a revolution in the U.S., authorities said.
President Donald Trump, who celebrated his 80th birthday at the UFC event on Sunday, was friends with Epstein many years ago but has said he ended their relationship before the disgraced financier’s crimes became known. Epstein killed himself in a New York jail cell in 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday in Évian-les-Bains, France, where he was attending the Group of Seven summit, Trump, a Republican, said he had not been briefed on the thwarted plot.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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