8 Indicted in a Foiled Sniper-and-Drone Plot
Against the White House UFC Event
UFC Freedom 250 was a real, sanctioned mixed-martial-arts event staged on the White House South Lawn on June 14, 2026 — timed to President Trump’s 80th birthday, since he was born June 14, 1946. It is not a misprint or a hypothetical: the fight card happened, in front of a live crowd on federal grounds, exactly as planned.
What federal prosecutors say happened alongside it is the subject of this story. On July 9, 2026, a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Ohio returned a two-count indictment against eight men, accusing them of conspiring to attack that same event with snipers and drones — a plot the government says was disrupted before it could be carried out, following a tip from a suspect’s own mother.
All eight men are charged, not convicted. This story sources every figure to Justice Department and DHS press releases and the national outlets that covered the arrests and indictment, and uses “indicted” and “alleged” throughout — because that is where this case currently stands.
- 8 men — indicted on two federal conspiracy counts by a Southern District of Ohio grand jury, July 9, 2026 · Source: DOJ; Fox News
- Life in prison — maximum penalty for Count Two, conspiracy to commit murder on federal government territory · Source: DOJ
- 15 years — maximum penalty for Count One, conspiracy to provide material support and resources to terrorists · Source: DOJ
- ~23 Signal users — reportedly found discussing pre-operational activity on one suspect's phone — investigators say the network may extend beyond the eight charged · Source: NPR; PBS NewsHour
- 3 waves of arrests — from the first 5 defendants in mid-June to the 8th in early July, before the July 9 indictment consolidated every charge · Source: DOJ; ABC News
UFC Freedom 250 was months in the planning — a made-for-television spectacle bringing a live Ultimate Fighting Championship card to the White House South Lawn on June 14, 2026, President Trump’s 80th birthday. The event drew heavy security, a national broadcast audience, and the kind of high-profile guest list — senior administration officials among them — that any protective detail treats as a serious planning exercise long before fight night.
According to the federal indictment, a group of men began acquiring money, firearms, ammunition, body armor, and drone equipment as early as May 2026 — roughly a month before the fight card. Prosecutors allege the goal was an attack on the event itself: snipers positioned to fire on the grounds, drones used for surveillance or as a delivery mechanism, and a coordinated plan aimed, in U.S. Attorney Dominick S. Gerace II’s words, at “our national leaders at the highest levels.”
The break in the case, according to reporting on the investigation, came from inside a defendant’s own family. On June 10, 2026, the FBI reportedly learned of the plot after the mother of one suspect — 19-year-old Tycen C. Proper of Danville, Ohio — contacted police about his weapons purchases and online activity. That tip set off a four-week investigation that grew from a single name to eight defendants and, prosecutors say, a Signal chat log with dozens of participants.
“Our indictment alleges that these eight coconspirators weren't simply airing grievances from behind their keyboards, they were taking actionable steps to murder our national leaders at the highest levels.”
U.S. Attorney Dominick S. Gerace II, Southern District of Ohio, announcing the indictment, July 9, 2026
FBI Director Kash Patel first disclosed the plot publicly in mid-June, posting about the disruption on X before the Justice Department’s formal announcement. Within days, prosecutors filed a criminal complaint — a charging document that precedes indictment and is used to make an arrest while an investigation continues — against five men: Proper, Bryan Omar Roa, Michael Alan Thomas, Daniel K. Eskridge, and Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez, whom investigators identified as the group’s alleged ringleader. All five were arrested between roughly June 12 and June 16, 2026, days before UFC Freedom 250 was scheduled to go on as planned.
UFC Freedom 250 went ahead as scheduled on June 14, 2026, with no incident reported at the event itself. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt publicly thanked the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service afterward for disrupting the alleged plot before fight night arrived — crediting the agencies’ work rather than treating the evening as uneventful by chance.
The case did not stop at five. On roughly June 22 and 23, 2026, prosecutors added charges against two more men — William Lee Spartacus Falkner of Belfair, Washington, who investigators allege discussed drone procurement and operation over Telegram, and Jordan W. Rincker of St. Joseph, Missouri, whom prosecutors say handled logistics and financing, including allegedly funding a co-conspirator’s travel to Washington, D.C. An eighth defendant, Chandler D. Scaggs of Chapmanville, West Virginia, was arrested during the week of July 6, 2026 — just days before the grand jury returned its indictment, and the last of the eight to be taken into custody.
The July 9, 2026 indictment folded all eight defendants into a single, two-count case. Count One charges conspiracy to provide material support and resources to terrorists — alleging the group supplied or planned to supply money, firearms, ammunition, body armor, explosives, drones, and medical or communications equipment, along with personnel, in support of the plot. That count carries a reported maximum sentence of roughly 15 years. Count Two charges conspiracy to commit murder on federal government territory and conspiracy to murder a federal government official — the more serious count, carrying a reported maximum sentence of life in prison.
The indictment was announced jointly by Gerace’s office and the Justice Department’s National Security Division. Assistant Attorney General John A. Eisenberg, who leads that division, joined the announcement, underscoring that the department is treating the case as a national-security prosecution rather than an ordinary weapons or conspiracy case. Gerace framed the distinction bluntly: “Political discourse has many places in our society; political violence has none.”
A federal grand jury in the Southern District of Ohio has indicted eight men on charges including conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to murder a federal government official, in connection with an alleged plot to attack the UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House.
Notably, neither count as reported requires the government to prove the eight defendants agreed on every operational detail together — conspiracy charges typically require only that each defendant knowingly joined an agreement toward the same illegal end and that at least one participant took a concrete step to advance it. That legal structure is part of why prosecutors were able to charge defendants who allegedly played very different roles, from an accused ringleader to men who allegedly supplied money or discussed drone logistics from states hundreds of miles from Washington, under the same two counts.
All eight men face the identical two counts described above. What differs, according to the indictment and the government’s public statements, is the alleged role prosecutors assign each of them within the conspiracy.
Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez, 31, Omaha, Nebraska: alleged ringleader and planner. A Mexican national who entered the U.S. on a B-2 visa that expired in December 2001, he was granted DACA status in 2014; DHS says that status was revoked following his arrest, and ICE has lodged a detainer against him.
Tycen C. Proper, 19, Danville, Ohio: the first defendant identified; the investigation was reportedly triggered by his own mother’s calls to police over his weapons purchases and online activity. His attorney says he intends to plead not guilty and has asked the public to keep an open mind given his age.
Daniel K. Eskridge, 32, Hamilton/Kidder, Missouri: among the first five men arrested in mid-June 2026.
William Lee Spartacus Falkner, 21, Belfair, Washington: allegedly discussed drone procurement and operation with co-conspirators over Telegram.
Jordan W. Rincker, 28, St. Joseph, Missouri: allegedly handled logistics and financing, including funding a co-conspirator’s travel to Washington, D.C.
Bryan Omar Roa, 24, Calimesa, California: among the first five men arrested in mid-June 2026.
Michael Alan Thomas, 32, Pinon Hills, California: among the first five men arrested in mid-June 2026.
Chandler D. Scaggs, 21, Chapmanville, West Virginia: the most recently arrested, taken into custody the week of July 6, 2026; prosecutors allege he was designated as one of the group’s snipers.
DHS Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis described Alvarez in blunter terms when his DACA status was revoked: “He was the ringleader of a failed terror attack targeting UFC Freedom 250 at the White House. He and his co-conspirators now face charges of conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit violence on White House grounds.” Alvarez’s attorney has not been quoted in national coverage as of this writing; like all eight defendants, he has not entered a plea in the indicted case and is presumed innocent.
FBI Los Angeles, working with our federal partners, arrested two Southern California men accused of participating in a plot to attack a White House event. Political violence will not be tolerated.
Two men from western Missouri have been charged for their alleged roles in a conspiracy to attack a federal government event at the White House, including allegedly funding a co-conspirator's travel to Washington, D.C.
New: the alleged ringleader in the foiled White House UFC plot, Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez, is a Mexican national whose DACA status has been revoked following his arrest. ICE has lodged a detainer.
Reporting on the case describes the group as far-right “accelerationist” — a term investigators and researchers use for movements that seek to hasten societal collapse through violence rather than pursue change through politics. Investigators say the network first organized around a TikTok group called “Vanguard of the Old,” then migrated to the encrypted messaging apps Signal and SimpleX under the name “Vanguard of the Old Republic” as the alleged planning grew more operational.
The grievances attributed to the group in reporting on the investigation span an unusually wide ideological range: government corruption, the Epstein files, the water consumption of AI data centers, anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment, and broader anti-technology and anti-corporate resentment. That breadth is itself notable — accelerationist networks often fuse disparate grievances into a single narrative of societal collapse rather than organizing around one cause. According to some news reports, several defendants used online monikers such as “Shepherd” and “Fulcrum” within the group’s chats, though those names come from secondary reporting rather than the Justice Department’s own charging text and should be read accordingly.
One detail from the investigation remains an open thread rather than a settled fact: investigators reportedly found roughly 23 Signal users discussing pre-operational activity on the phone of one suspect. Eight men have been indicted. Whether the remaining participants in that chat were bystanders, duplicate accounts, or additional co-conspirators who have not yet been charged is not something the public record answers as of this writing — and prosecutors have not said whether more charges are coming.
Vice President JD Vance (R) addressed the plot on Fox & Friends, calling it “very, very dark stuff” while also noting the alleged plot was “not that advanced” given the level of security already in place around the event. It was a notably measured characterization from the administration’s second-highest official — treating the threat as real without overstating how close it came to succeeding.
All eight men accused of plotting a sniper-and-drone attack on a UFC event at the White House have now been indicted by a federal grand jury — two counts each, including conspiracy to commit murder.
The most striking public reaction, though, came from President Trump (R) himself. Asked about the plot by a reporter at a G7 press gaggle, Trump said: “I haven’t heard about it… The attack that I watched was the fighters.” The remark — at an event held on his own birthday, which he attended — is reported here as a factual account of what he said, without characterization of what it does or doesn’t reflect about his awareness of the case. Neither the indictment nor DOJ’s public statements name a specific individual as the plot’s intended target; prosecutors’ language describes the conspiracy as targeting “a federal government official” at the event.
Press Secretary Leavitt’s thank-you to the FBI and Secret Service, delivered in the days after the event proceeded safely, is the administration’s clearest on-record statement crediting law enforcement with disrupting the plot before June 14. Between that statement, Vance’s characterization, and Trump’s own comment weeks later, the administration’s public messaging on the case has been notably uneven in tone — a fact the story reports without speculating about its cause.
UFC Freedom 250 happened exactly as planned on the White House South Lawn on June 14, 2026. According to a federal indictment returned July 9, 2026, it very nearly happened alongside a sniper-and-drone attack that a suspect’s own mother helped stop before it could unfold. Eight men — from Ohio to Nebraska to California to West Virginia — now face a two-count indictment carrying penalties up to life in prison, built around an alleged network investigators say may extend well beyond the eight people currently charged. None of them has been convicted of anything. All are presumed innocent. What is not in dispute is that federal prosecutors believe they came close enough to try.
