A federal court in Brooklyn sentenced the head of an international neo-Nazi organization to 15 years behind bars Wednesday for attempting to orchestrate violent hate crimes against Jewish people and racial minorities, including a disturbing scheme involving poisoned holiday candy.
Michail Chkhikvishvili, a 22-year-old Georgian national known by the alias “Commander Butcher,” received the sentence after entering a guilty plea in November to charges of soliciting hate crimes and sharing instructions for creating explosives and ricin.
“I acknowledge that my actions have brought harm by spreading hatred and violence and I’m truly sorry for that,” Chkhikvishvili wrote in a letter to the judge last month.
Defense attorney Zachary Taylor had requested a lighter five-year sentence, pointing to his client’s mental health issues that began in his teenage years when he “fell under the spell of the violent extremist content” on social media, while emphasizing that he has since changed. Taylor also highlighted the difficult conditions Chkhikvishvili endured during almost a year of detention in Moldova, where authorities arrested him in 2024 based on an international warrant, according to his correspondence with the judge.
Federal prosecutors identified Chkhikvishvili as the head of the Maniac Murder Cult, a global extremist organization following neo-Nazi beliefs that advocate for violence designed to spark racial and religious warfare.
According to prosecutors, the organization’s calls for violence — shared through Telegram messaging platforms and detailed in the “Hater’s Handbook” — seem to have motivated actual killings, including a school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, last year that claimed the life of a 16-year-old student.
Chkhikvishvili “repeatedly called for the murder of innocent civilians, including children, and schemed to attack and terrorize Jewish communities and racial minorities in the United States,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg said in a statement. “Chkhikvishvili, for example, tried to recruit a supposed associate to dress up as Santa Claus and pass out poisoned candy to minority children.”
Beginning in 2021, prosecutors stated that Chkhikvishvili shared the “Hater’s Handbook” with group members and other individuals.
“I’m very ashamed authoring Haters Handbook, hoping one day it will disappear, I wish I never wrote it,” Chkhikvishvili wrote to the judge.
Prosecutors revealed that Chkhikvishvili came to Brooklyn in 2022 and continuously urged others to carry out hate crimes and violent acts. In 2023, they said he attempted to convince an undercover FBI employee to conduct bombings and arson attacks “for the purpose of harming racial minorities, Jewish individuals and others.”
During 2024, the undercover agent received instructions “to target the Jewish community, Jewish schools, and Jewish children in Brooklyn with poison,” prosecutors stated.
“Chkhikvishvili sent detailed manuals about creating and mixing lethal poisons and gases, including ricin.”
