Regan Darby Prater, a 28-year-old resident of Tullahoma, Tennessee, pleaded guilty yesterday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Knoxville to one count of arson and one count of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Sentencing is scheduled for September 9 before U.S. District Judge Thomas A. Varlan. Prater faces up to 20 years in federal prison, along with potential fines, restitution, and a term of supervised release.

As part of the plea agreement, Prater waived indictment by a federal grand jury. Court documents state that he drove from his home to the Highlander Center—a school for grassroots leaders and social movements in New Market, Tennessee—and used a “sparkler bomb” (a napalm-based incendiary device) to destroy one of its buildings, causing more than $1.2 million in damage. Before detonating the device, he spray-painted the symbol of the Iron Guard, a 1930s-era paramilitary arm of the Romanian Nazi Party, in the parking lot. Prater admitted that the arson was motivated by his white-supremacist ideology and was carried out in response to the center’s faith-based educational programs and its historical ties to the Civil Rights Movement. The symbol he used had also appeared on the rifle employed in the Christchurch, New Zealand, terrorist attacks just two weeks earlier.

Separately, Prater acknowledged that in 2019 he attempted to provide material support to Hizballah (Hezbollah), a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization. He obtained a document containing personally identifiable information for over 35,000 individuals purportedly affiliated with the Israeli government and passed it to someone he believed was connected to Hezbollah, adding the message “Start the hunt.”

The announcement was made by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon (Civil Rights Division), Assistant Attorney General John Eisenberg (National Security Division), U.S. Attorney Francis M. Hamilton III for the Eastern District of Tennessee, and FBI Nashville Field Office Special Agent in Charge Terence G. Reilly. The case was investigated by the FBI with assistance from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Casey T. Arrowood and Kyle J. Wilson, along with Trial Attorneys Katherine McCallister (Civil Rights Division) and Justin Sher (National Security Division).