Suspects plead not guilty in Southern California bombing plot

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three of the four suspects accused of plotting to bomb several Southern California business locations on New Year’s Eve have pleaded not guilty.

Audrey Carroll, 30, and Zachary Page, 32, entered their pleas in federal court Monday. Tina Lai, 41, entered her plea in court a few days earlier. Their attorneys did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.

The fourth person, Dante Anthony-Gaffield, 24, will enter his plea Jan. 20.

The suspects, all from the Los Angeles area, were arrested Dec. 12 in the Mojave Desert east of Los Angeles as they were rehearsing their plot, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said last month. Officials said they made the arrests before the suspects assembled a functional explosive device.

Essayli said Carroll created a detailed plan to bomb five or more business locations owned by two companies across Southern California on New Year’s Eve described as “Amazon-type” logistical centers. He did not identify the alleged targets.

A grand jury indicted the four on multiple counts of providing and attempting to provide material support to terrorists and possession of unregistered firearms. Carroll and Page were also indicted on one count of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction.

Officials said they are members of an offshoot of an anti-capitalist and anti-government group dubbed the Turtle Island Liberation Front. The group calls for decolonization, tribal sovereignty and “the working class to rise up and fight back against capitalism,” according to the criminal complaint.

They also are members of what one of the defendants characterized as a “radical” faction of the group that communicated using a chat called “Order of the Black Lotus,” according to the indictment.

The term “Turtle Island” is used by some Indigenous peoples to describe North America in a way that reflects its existence outside of the colonial boundaries put in place by the U.S. and Canada. It comes from Indigenous creation stories where the continent was formed on the back of a giant turtle.

Two of the group’s members also had discussed plans for future attacks targeting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and vehicles with pipe bombs, according to the criminal complaint.

Photos included in the court documents show the desert campsite where they were arrested with what investigators said were bomb-making materials strewn across plastic folding tables.

Trial for Carroll, Page, and Lai is scheduled to begin Feb. 17. Anthony-Gaffield’s trial will be scheduled once he enters his plea.

If convicted, Carroll and Page could face a maximum sentence of life in federal prison, and Anthony-Gaffield and Lai could face a maximum sentence of 25 years in federal prison.