A Florida magistrate judge has decided that Paul Miller will remain in custody leading up to his trial.
Peter Smith
Canadian Anti-Hate Network
Neo-Nazi accelerationist streamer Paul Miller has seen one count of possession of ammunition and one count of possession of a short barrel rifle by a felon added to his charges in a Florida courtroom on Wednesday.
The court ruled to hold the popular Nazi troll in detention leading up to his trial, and one FBI agent said Miller is still being investigated for sending threats across state lines.
Miller was taken into custody after an early morning raid on his apartment in Fort Lauderdale, Fl.
This is his second appearance since being indicted last week by a federal grand jury for possession of a firearm while being a convicted felon. Specifically, the reports say this deals with a matter in January 17, 2018, in Broward County.
His lawyer, Norman Kent, indicated that Miller would be retaining new counsel after the day’s proceedings. Kent is a criminal attorney, cannabis activist, and prominent member of the south Florida LGBTQ community.
Likening him at one point to the character Borat, Kent’s arguments focused on claims that Miller is merely an entertainer and sought to shift the blame onto his fans. During testimony, however, one FBI agent pointed to Miller posting in-person encounters with Black people where he would shout and harass them, including threats of violence.
He calls them “N***** encounters” on his channel.
The prosecution also pointed to numerous online harassment campaigns organized by Miller against everyone from his personal rivals to public figures and private citizens.
“What is a legitimate threat and what is protected speech?” asked Magistrate Judge Patrick M. Hunt, as he heard arguments against Miller’s pretrial release.
His decision, Hunt said, ultimately rested on the safety of the community, rather than the defendant's actions being “horrible.”
According to Mario Ariza of the Sun Sentinel, the raid against Miller was carried out by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, reports from neighbours say that they entered the property after deploying flashbang grenades when taking Miller into custody.
Source: Broward County Sheriff's Office
On Twitter, Ariza detailed the weapons found in Miller’s residence: rifle parts, with no manufacturer information or serial number, over 400 rounds of ammunition, and a knife.
In court, the FBI said parts of the rifle were found hidden in Miller's dryer.
Ariza also shared that Miller’s fans appeared to be livestreaming the hearing, which is disallowed under court rules. At the time of publication, the account which was hosting the livestream (which claims to be based in Finland) either took down the video or made it private.
Rising to prominence for shouting neo-Nazi rhetoric and racial slurs over live streaming services, the targets of Miller’s harassment include anyone unlucky enough to come across him online -- including children.
Before his arrest, his streams followed a similar pattern. Miller chose from his wardrobe of costumes, ranging from The Joker to neo-Nazi Terrorgram style gear -- complete with a swastika adorned plate carrier and half skull mask -- to a simple lab coat and clipboard. Once in character, Miller enters himself into the roulette-style video chat matching service Omegle.
On Omegle, users are connected to random streams from webcams around the globe. At any given moment it’s connecting adults, teenagers, and adolescents to each other.
Miller has carved a niche out for himself using the platform to berate people of colour, LGBTQ2S+ peoples, Jews, and anyone he comes across that does not fit into his specific National Socialist mould.
“You’re a f****t n****r lover,” Miller shouts as a group of teens throw insults at him. Later, after one of them tells him she is a lesbian, he offers her a gun through the screen to kill herself.
Miller often encounters minors. Over the hours of his content, a pattern has emerged. He often asks the age of younger-looking matches, and sometimes he passes on people in the low teens, but often he pursues anyway.
His main channel on an encrypted messaging app has over 42,000 subscribers at time of writing. While by no means the first person to monetize trolling live streams, his characters and influence has grown quickly and inspired others to take up the cause across the globe.
This includes Brandon Martinez, a Canadian-born racist author and blogger who has spent almost a decade building his brand as an anti-Jewish, pro-fascist internet personality.
It was however Miller’s popularity that may have helped lead to his downfall among his peers. While complaining of “antifa” revealing the address of his parents' home in New Jersey, he became the focus of a concerted and targeted harassment campaign at the hands of other neo-Nazis.
Their complaint was not his vile nature or immature tactics, but the fact that Miller is of Romani heritage. This caused extensive details about Miller’s life to be revealed, the circulation of a genetic test alleging to show his lack of racial purity, and more.
It was when he relocated to Florida, however, that things really took off.
Unbeknownst to Miller, each new video posted on his social accounts, taken outside his home, walking the streets of his new city, even the videos posted to a new fitness channel he was running, revealed more details about his location to Paul Landolt aka “Rev,” of the Atomwaffen Division splinter group Fashlash.
A fellow Fort Lauderdale resident, Landolt was able to determine Miller’s address. Not only sharing it online, but also showing up outside in person, filming videos of the property’s exterior.
Landolt’s identity was revealed last month.
An amateur Muay Thai fighter in the early 2010s, he fought under the name Paul “Gypsy” Miller. Competing for several amateur titles, it would be combat outside the ring that eventually garnished him the media attention he desperately seeks.
Making national news after a New York City street fight with, as he claims, 10 anti-fascist activists in 2017, he is often misidentified as a Proud Boy, who also fought with protesters outside the Metropolitan Republican Club, where Gavin McInnes was giving a talk.
"They tried to kill me," Miller told Newsweek, two days after a street brawl outside the Republican Club. "These were terrorists."
Despite the publication calling him an independent journalist, NBC News noted at the time that Miller’s own statements from his stream on a now-deleted YouTube channel showed him before the brawl saying, “I wanna go over there and instigate it but the cops are here so we’ll be nice.”
“I wanna fuck them up real bad, but the cops are here.”
Follow Peter Smith on Twitter at @misterEpete.
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