Nicholas Welker, a 33-year-old San Jose resident known as ‘King ov Wrath,’ was sentenced to 3½ years in federal prison for threatening a journalist. Welker, the leader of the racially motivated extremist group Feuerkrieg Division, was arrested in March 2023.
Prosecutors presented evidence that Welker posted a threat in a public online forum featuring an image of a gun aimed at the Brooklyn-based journalist. The threat, which identified the journalist and his employer, labeled him a ‘race traitor’ and warned him to stop reporting on Feuerkrieg.
Two underage members of the hate group subsequently sent the threat directly to the journalist’s Twitter account. Welker pleaded guilty to conspiring to make threatening statements, an offense punishable by up to five years in prison. He was sentenced to 44 months behind bars on April 19 by Breon Peace, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
Welker’s attorneys had requested his release to a San Jose drug treatment program during the case proceedings, but the judge agreed with prosecutors who argued he posed a danger to the community and was a flight risk.
