Man linked to white supremacist group seeks pretrial release

A Maryland man linked by prosecutors to a violent white supremacist group is asking to be freed on bond while awaiting trial on federal criminal charges. U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy Sullivan in Greenbelt, Maryland, is scheduled to hold a hearing Wednesday on whether to set bond for William Garfield Bilbrough IV.

Bilbrough, 19, has remained in federal custody since his arrest in January on charges that he helped transport and “harbor” a fellow member of The Base accused of illegally entering the U.S. from Canada.

Sullivan refused to set bond for Bilbrough at a hearing in January. Sullivan called it “troubling” that Bilbrough had described himself as a leader of the white supremacist group but said it was a “close call” on whether to keep the teen detained.

In a court filing Monday, prosecutors said Bilbrough’s attorneys filed a sealed motion to reopen his detention hearing. The magistrate agreed to let prosecutors file a response to that motion under seal.

Bilbrough, who worked as a pizza delivery driver and lived with his grandmother in Denton, Maryland, before his arrest, pleaded not guilty last month to charges including conspiracy to “transport and harbor certain aliens.”

Former Canadian Armed Forces reservist Patrik Mathews, 27; and Brian Mark Lemley Jr., 33, of Elkton, Maryland; separately pleaded not guilty to related charges including transporting a firearm and ammunition with the intent to commit a felony.

In a court filing, Justice Department prosecutors said Lemley and Mathews discussed “the planning of violence” at a gun rights rally in Richmond, Virginia, in January. A closed-circuit television camera and microphone installed by investigators in a Delaware home captured Mathews talking about the Virginia rally as a “boundless” opportunity, prosecutors said.

Bilbrough, the only defendant in the case who isn’t facing firearms-related charges, participated in their early discussions about traveling to Richmond but had tried to distance himself from the group shortly before his arrest, a prosecutor has said.

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