USA – Denton man with neo-Nazi beliefs send threats to Jewish organization

Denton, TX – A Denton business owner wanted the Jewish community in the U.S. to know exactly what he thought about them, the feds say.

So Anthony Hammer, according to federal prosecutors, sent an email to the Anti-Defamation League, laying out his position: “come and find me. come after me. come hunt me down. this is me. this is really me. all of my info. I will kill all of you zionist pigs. 4th reich. Soon.”

They did find him — with help from the FBI.

Now Hammer, 33, is in federal custody without bond on a charge of making interstate threats to the ADL, a civil rights and anti-hate organization based in New York City, court records show.

A search of his Denton rental home turned up numerous shirts and hats displaying Nazi and antisemitic messages and symbols, court records show. Agents also seized assault rifles, body armor, a riot shield, a spear, a sword and other weapons. Some of the material agents found included antigovernment, anti-vaccination and white supremacist messages, authorities said.

Handwritten notes in a spiral notebook found during the search said: “get unvaxxed cops who won’t submit to the jab on our side;” and “burn DC to the ground;” and “return it to its swamp state,” court records show.

Hammer’s arrest coincides with a sharp increase in antisemitic threats, intimidation and hate crimes over the past few years. The ADL reported almost 700 hate crimes against Jews in 2020. The organization said it also received reports that year of more than 2,000 incidents of assault, harassment and vandalism targeting Jews. In 2019, such crimes reached an all-time high in the U.S., said the ADL, which has tracked them since 1979.

The ADL last year reported a 5% increase in the number of antisemitic incidents in Texas, which included graffiti in Dallas and a “big uptick in distribution of white supremacist propaganda over much of North Texas.”

Hammer also is accused of threatening to murder Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, who is Jewish. Hammer has not been charged with a crime in that matter, which remains under investigation.

An attorney for Hammer, who previously lived in South Florida, could not be reached for comment.

An ADL spokesman said he could not comment on an ongoing investigation but that “ADL is cooperating with federal authorities on the matter.”

During a detention hearing last month in Plano, an FBI agent testified about the threat Hammer allegedly communicated to the ADL.

Agent Jeffrey Cotner told a judge that Hammer submitted his threat through ADL’s website in July 2021 and listed himself as a “point-of-contact.” The agent described the “4th Reich” term Hammer used as a “hypothetical idea that refers to a possible resurgence of Nazi ideas.”

The IP address of the computer used to send the threat belonged to GSL Health LLC, a business Hammer operated, he said. And Cotner said in his testimony that Hammer’s employees confirmed that he had “expressed anti-Semitic views.”

FBI agents searched Hammer’s home on March 4 and found $100,000 in cash in his bedroom along with a “sticker-making device and related materials” that Hammer used to create stickers opposing COVID-19 vaccines, court records show. The FBI agent said he didn’t know if Hammer also created the various anti-Semitic and white supremacist stickers found in the home.

Cotner told the judge that Hammer also made eight threats “over a recorded telephone line” to the Pennsylvania governor’s staff over several days in November 2020. “That included multiple death threats directed toward Governor Wolf,” the agent said in his testimony. He said Pennsylvania authorities are investigating the incidents.

The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The FBI agent also detailed several run-ins Hammer has had with law enforcement.

That included a September 2021 incident at a local Starbucks during which Hammer became enraged over masks the employees were wearing, court records show. Hammer became aggressive, “shouted derogatory comments, threw drinks over the counter and threw a tip jar, which hit an employee in the knee,” court records said.