Bail raised to $1M for Hoover Dam bridge barricade suspect
KINGMAN, Ariz. — An Arizona judge raised bail to $1 million on Tuesday for a Henderson man facing terrorism charges for using an armored vehicle to block a bridge near the Hoover Dam.
The ruling by Judge Billy Sipe came in response to a defense motion asking him to lower the $25,000 bond for Matthew Wright, 30, in connection with the June 15 incident. His public defenders noted that Wright had no known previous criminal history and could reside with an aunt and uncle in Phoenix and commute to Kingman for hearings while his case is pending.
But Sipe saw things differently, proclaiming Wright a danger to the public and questioning his mental stability.
“I find that $25,000 is an extremely low bond for these type of cases,” Sipe said, making comparisons to the Oct. 1 massacre in Las Vegas last fall and other deadly shootings at schools and churches across the nation. “I am gravely concerned with his conduct.”
The judge also noted handwritten letters that Wright arranged to be sent from jail to President Donald Trump, members of Nevada’s congressional delegation and local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. He told Wright the communications certainly put him on the radar of the Secret Service, if he hadn’t been there already.
The letters bore the motto of a right-wing conspiracy group known as QAnon.
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I watched a bunch of work go down the drain because of a well meaning dumbass in PizzaGate.
Gunman in ‘Pizzagate’ Shooting Is Sentenced to 4 Years in Prison
A 29-year-old North Carolina man who fired a military-style assault rifle inside a popular Washington pizzeria in December, wrongly believing he was saving children trapped in a sex-slave ring, was sentenced on Thursday to four years in prison.
The man, Edgar Maddison Welch, drove on Dec. 4 from his hometown, Salisbury, N.C., to the Comet Ping Pong restaurant with three guns. He was investigating unfounded but widespread online reports of children held there in a child abuse scheme led by Hillary Clinton, a theory known as “Pizzagate.” But Mr. Welch, who pleaded guilty to federal weapons charges in March, rescued no children. Rather, he frightened employees and patrons, who panicked and ran.
Mr. Welch surrendered after the episode and almost immediately apologized, saying he had made an “incredibly ill-advised decision” to try to save endangered children who were never there. “The intel on this wasn’t 100 percent,” Mr. Welch, who goes by his middle name, Maddison, said in an interview with The New York Times after his arrest.
The judge, Ketanji Brown Jackson of Federal District Court in Washington, sentenced Mr. Welch to four years in prison and three years of probation. He must pay $5,744 in restitution for property damage at the pizzeria.
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A really good read into the mind of a guy that shoots up a pizza joint
What was his original plan?
Mr. Welch, the father of two daughters, said he woke up Sunday morning and told his family he had some things to do. He left “Smallsbury,” a nickname for his hometown, for the 350-mile drive to Washington with the intention of giving the restaurant a “closer look” and then returning home. He wanted to “shine some light on it.” As he made his way to Washington, he felt his “heart breaking over the thought of innocent people suffering.” Once he got to the pizzeria, there was an abrupt change of plans. Mr. Welch would not say why he took a military-style assault rifle inside the restaurant and fired it. According to court documents, Mr. Welch said he had come armed to help rescue the children.
