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Kansas trio accused of plot to attack immigrants get lawyers

This Oct. 14, 2016 photo provided by the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office in Wichita, Kan., shows Gavin Wright. Wright is one of three members of a Kansas militia group were charged Friday Oct. 14, 2016, with plotting to bomb an apartment building filled with Somali immigrants in Garden City, Kan. Acting U.S. Attorney Tom Beall said Curtis Wayne Allen, Patrick Eugene Stein and Wright are members of a group calling itself the Kansas Security Force. Beall says the arrests were the culmination of an eight-month investigation. (Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office via AP) This Oct. 14, 2016 photo provided by the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office in Wichita, Kan., shows Gavin Wright. Wright is one of three members of a Kansas militia group were charged Friday Oct. 14, 2016, with plotting to bomb an apartment building filled with Somali immigrants in Garden City, Kan. Acting U.S. Attorney Tom Beall said Curtis Wayne Allen, Patrick Eugene Stein and Wright are members of a group calling itself the Kansas Security Force. Beall says the arrests were the culmination of an eight-month investigation. (Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office via AP)

By Associated Press October 17, 2016 2 min read

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) – Three men accused of plotting to attack Somali immigrants in western Kansas appeared in court Monday, where they were appointed lawyers and ordered to remain in custody for the time being.

Magistrate Judge Gwynne Birzer set detention hearings for Patrick Eugene Stein and Gavin Wayne Wright for Friday and for Curtis Wayne Allen next Monday.

The trio was charged in a criminal complaint unsealed Friday with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction. Their attorneys declined to comment after the brief hearing in Wichita.

Prosecutors say the men are members of a small militia group that calls itself “the Crusaders” and whose members espouse sovereign citizen, anti-government, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant extremist beliefs.

They allege that the men planned to detonate truck bombs around a small Garden City apartment complex where about 120 Somali immigrants live and that they had discussed attacking area churches that helped settle the refugees and get them jobs.