A federal judge today dismissed two counts against a 65-year-old Tennessee man who was convicted of plotting to burn down a Muslim community after an eight-day trial in federal court earlier this year.
Robert Doggart, of Sequatchie County, Tenn., was convicted of solicitation to commit a civil rights violation, solicitation to burn down a mosque, and two counts of making threats via interstate commerce.
Prosecutors said Doggart attempted to recruit about 10 individuals on right-wing social media sites between February 2015 and April 2015 to travel armed to Islamberg near Hancock, N.Y.
The former Tennessee Valley Authority engineer believed the community was a training ground for terrorists and wanted to see for himself whether its members were planning an attack on New York or the Delaware River. To that end, prosecutors played numerous wiretapped phone calls in February in which Doggart discussed using assault weapons, machetes, and demolition equipment on the roughly 70-acre commune. In one, he referred to children as “collateral damage.”
But U.S. District Judge Curtis Collier said today jurors did not have sufficient evidence to prove two of Doggart’s charges beyond a reasonable doubt-specifically, threats via interstate commerce, which are based on two phones calls from March 22 and April 9.