Guilty plea in firebomb conspiracy against California Democratic headquarters

A California man pleaded guilty on Friday to attempting to blow up the state Democratic Party’s offices, the first in a string of politically motivated threats following the defeat of former President Donald Trump.

Under a plea agreement that may land him in federal prison for seven to nine years, Ian Benjamin Rogers, 46, of Napa, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to destroy a structure by fire or explosives, possessing an explosive device, and possessing a machine gun.

Prosecutors in San Francisco accused Rogers and Jarrod Copeland of planning to assault Democratic targets following Trump’s defeat in the November 2020 presidential election.

The pair “hoped their attacks would prompt a movement,” prosecutors said when they announced the charges in July.

Copeland, 38, previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy and destruction of records.

“I want to blow up a democrat building bad,” Rogers wrote in one of the messaging apps he used to communicate with Copeland, according to the indictment. In a different message, he said that after Democratic President Joe Biden was inaugurated, “we go to war.”

Their first planned target was the John L. Burton Democratic Headquarters in Sacramento, prosecutors said.

According to prosecutors, law enforcement authorities who raided Rogers’ house in January 2021 recovered roughly 50 weapons, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and five pipe bombs.

He was arrested on state charges at the time after the FBI said he sent text messages that investigators misinterpreted as threats against the vacant Governor’s Mansion and social media firms Facebook and Twitter.

According to Rogers’ attorney, Colin Cooper, the federal term will run simultaneously with a 10- to 12-year state sentence on comparable Napa County counts of carrying fully automatic guns and explosive devices.

Rogers “has never been in trouble before,” Cooper said.

“He’s accepted responsibility and he is desirous of paying his debt to society and resuming a life of productivity, of being a good father and good husband and a good family man” with an 11-year-old son, Cooper said. “He feels awful about what happened and what he’s done to his family, and he’s a guy I think we’ll never see again in the (criminal justice) system.”

Rogers remains in custody awaiting his sentencing, set for Sept. 30.

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