A woman accused of plotting a mass-casualty attack at a Toledo bar pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court.
Elizabeth Lecron’s hands shook and she repeatedly wiped her eyes with a tissue after admitting to conspiracy to provide and conceal material support and resources to terrorists and to transporting explosives in interstate commerce in a plea agreement that dropped all other charges against her. Per the terms of the agreement, she will serve 15 years in prison and a lifetime of supervision upon release.
“It is the choice I would like to make. Yes, your honor,” she told U.S. District Judge James Carr, speaking in a soft voice.
In accepting the plea, Mr. Carr called Lecron’s foiled plot to commit “mass murder of an unimaginable scope” at a Toledo bar “dreadful, inhumane and inexcusable.”
Lecron, 24, admitted to purchasing black powder and several hundred screws in addition to other supplies she and her boyfriend, Vincent Armstrong, planned to use in an attack at a Toledo bar. FBI agents who searched her Willow Run Drive home in South Toledo found a large cache of guns and ammo and a shopping bag full of end caps — a component often used to build pipe bombs.
She and Armstrong, both of Toledo, were initially indicted in January on charges of conspiracy to transport or receive an explosive with intent to kill, injure, or intimidate and maliciously damage or destroy by fire or explosive, among other crimes.
Armstrong pleaded guilty in August in U.S. District Court in Toledo to a sole count of conspiracy to transport or receive an explosive with intent to kill, injure, or intimidate any individual, and maliciously damage or destroy by fire or explosive. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, when sentenced.
Throughout the investigation, undercover FBI agents and confidential sources communicated with Lecron, who indicated the couple devised a plan to commit an “upscale mass murder” at a Toledo bar — specifically being on the second floor, making it more difficult to escape, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Freeman. During the attack, they intended to use guns and explosives to kill, injure, and intimidate people.
Authorities began investigating the pair after an unnamed tipster contacted Toledo police and told officers that Armstrong expressed a desire to commit a violent attack and had firearms and the makings of a pipe bomb.
Investigators found the two had expressed online and in journals their admiration for mass killers and their hopes to kill themselves. They had collected multiple firearms, and had formulated ideas about how to carry out a violent attack.
Lecron planned to wear combat boots and a T-shirt that read, “False Profit,” while Armstrong would wear a trench coat and a T-shirt reading, “Society failed us,” during the “D-day” attack, Mr. Freeman said during a summary of the evidence. Law enforcement also found a duffel bag in Armstrong’s vehicle containing a tactical vest with two loaded magazines for an AK-47, two loaded magazines for a pistol, a gas mask, and printouts of how to construct various bombs.
When Lecron was asked by undercover FBI agents if she worried about killing others, she responded, “Take them out. I don’t really feel any type of way for that...I’m here to send a message and get the job done...if they are in the way of the explosion, they’re probably part of the problem so maybe it’s for the best,” Mr. Freeman said.
FBI Special Agent in Charge Eric B. Smith commended the tipster and encouraged others to report suspicious behavior.
“The two recent mass shootings that took 29 lives remind us that without the vigilance of the citizen that alerted law enforcement of Lecron and Armstrong’s desire to kill, Toledo could have been the site of a massacre,” Mr. Smith said in a news release, referring to attacks in Dayton and El Paso in recent weeks. “Law enforcement urges the public to report suspicious, concerning behavior — see something, say something.”
First Published August 29, 2019, 9:22 p.m.
