Wannabe Jewish Community Center Shooter Pleads Guilty in Ohio Federal Court

James Reardon, who marched in Charlottesville and wants a Whites-only homeland, might have to hold off on such plans for the time being.

YOUNGSTOWN, OH James Reardon, a White supremacist that participated in the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia almost four years ago, had pleaded guilty to charges stemming from threatening an Ohio Jewish community center in an Instagram video that showed him shooting a semi-automatic rifle.

According to the Associated Press, Reardon, 22, entered the pleas on Wednesday in federal court in Youngstown to transmitting a threatening communication and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. In August 2019 he was arrested by an FBI task force after he posted a video of himself shooting the rifle with the caption, “Police identified the Youngstown Jewish Family Community shooter as local white nationalist Seamus O’Rearedon.” The post also tagged the Jewish Community Center of Youngstown. When the task force raided his New Middletown home, they found firearms, a submachine gun and “numerous” items of World War II Nazi propaganda, authorities said. Reardon arrived home during the search.

Reardon is seen in video from the “Unite the Right” rally carrying the flag of the now-defunct neo-fascist group Identity Evropa, which dissolved after the events of that day, which saw James Fields drive his car into a crowd of counter protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 35. Reardon is seen in photographs alongside Fields, who is currently serving two life sentences plus 419 years in prison.

In a 2017 National Geographic documentary about the Unite the Right rally, Reardon said he considered himself a White nationalist. “I want a homeland for white people, and I think every race should have a homeland,” Reardon said, further stating that he felt there was a “demographic decline” in the US and Europe as well. “We need someplace that can be a white homeland or we will be bred out.”

Reardon’s sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 22. A federal district court judge will determine a sentence.