Fascists in New England are either removing themselves off the gameboard or having it done to them. Works for us either way!

This week has not been kind to New England fascists.

On Juneteenth, Leo Cullinan from the neo-Nazi Nationalist Social Club (NSC-131) died at his home less than 24 hours after his group staged a protest outside a Concord, New Hampshire coffee house. The following day, another member of that group was arrested in connection to his role in the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. In addition, it was learned this week that a prominent member of the neo-fascist group Super Happy Fun America (SHFA), a group who has both associated with NSC-131 members and saw members arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection, was arrested two weeks ago and charged with burning down the apartment building that he owned.

According to a release from the Department of Justice on Tuesday, Richard Zachary Ackerman of Salem, New Hampshire, has been charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers, civil disorder, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, and theft of government property. The release further states that Ackerman was tunnel that leads into the Capitol building where he found a U.S. Capitol Police helmet and video at the time shows him putting it on and wearing it during the insurrection. Later in the day, while wearing the helmet, Ackerman allegedly threw a water bottle at a line of police officers positioned at the tunnel.

A few days later, photos of the police helmet appeared online defaced with a sticker affixed to the helmet that read “New England 131,” which led federal agents to NSC-131. An informant confirmed to them that an NSC-131 member known online as “Zach Parker” – later revealed to be Ackerman’s online persona – was boasting about being at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, found a helmet on the ground, placed the sticker on the helmet snapped the picture and took the helmet home with him as his “war trophy”. The FBI recovered the helmet from Ackerman’s home in June of 2022. Ackerman made his first appearance in federal court Tuesday morning in Concord, New Hampshire.

The following day antifascists learned that two weeks ago Brandon Navom, 42, of North Adams, MA was arrested and accused of hiring a former tenant of his, 19-year-old Gabriel McLenithan, torch the condemned building last month that he owned and insured for $1.2 million. Navom, a software engineer and onetime candidate for Lowell, MA City Council, is a prominent member of Super Happy Fun America (SUFA) an organization that is known for sponsoring “Straight Pride” rallies in Boston and other neo-fascist events many of whom Navom has found himself starting fights with antifa. Like Ackerman, Navom was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, travelling there via bus with other SHFA members. Two of those members, lead organizers Mark Sahady and Suzanne Ianni, arrested for entering the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection. Ianni pled guilty in December and received a sentence of 15 days in jail and 30 months probation.  In April, Sahady received an additional charge of obstruction of an official proceeding, a felony. Navom has never been charged with any crimes connected with Jan. 6.

Navom was released on personal recognizance last week while McLenithan, who has had a series of run-ins with the law having been arrested on multiple arrest warrants last December but has no apparent connection to SHFA or any other neo-fascist group, was supposed to be arraigned on Monday morning. A search on Twitter reveals that McLenithan was the subject of a missing person bulletin in 2016 when he was 14.

SHFA held a small May 13 rally along with a sister organization, Citizens Organized to Restore Rights (CORR), of which Ianni is a regional leader, outside the CBS building in the Boston neighborhood of Brighton for what they called a “freedom of speech” rally against the network. Navom was among the participants. On June 18, NSC-131 staged a flash mob-styled rally outside a coffeehouse in Concord, New Hampshire to protest a Drag Queen Story Hour event there. They, along with SHFA and CORR are listed as hate or extremist groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).