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New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella is making good on his promise to target hate groups, announcing a new civil complaint against a notorious gang of New England Neo-Nazis.

The move comes as the state is also considering hate crimes charges against the three people who conducted an antisemitic, pro-Palestinian attack on an Israeli-owned business in Merrimack.

Christopher Hood, founder of NSC-131, and 19 NSC-131 members are accused of violating New Hampshire’s anti-discrimination law for allegedly trying to stop a drag queen story hour event at Concord’s Teatotaller Cafe this summer.

The identity of the other 19 men is not known. They are listed as John Does in the complaint.

Assistant Attorney General Sean Locke heads up the Attorney General’s Civil Rights Unit and said Wednesday that NSC-131’s actions at Teatotaller crossed the line from protest to discriminatory harassment.

“This isn’t a protest where a person, or a couple of people, are standing out on a sidewalk with a sign saying, ‘I don’t agree with what’s going on here,’” Locke said.

According to the complaint, “Hood and the other men stood outside the café and, for over an hour, faced into the café shouting homophobic slurs and phrases, loudly chanting and saluting in a fashion reminiscent of Nazi Germany. The complaint alleges that the men, led by Hood, banged on the café’s glass windows, and made intimidating gestures and comments directed at the performer and those in the café.”

Hood and his NSC-131 followers posted videos and photos of the incident on the group’s social media. Hood and his gang are behind dozens of sometimes violent demonstrations targeting racial minorities and members of the LGBTQ community throughout New England.

Despite the intimidating actions, NSC-131 did not stop the drag event at Teatotaller, according to drag performer Juicy Garland. Garland posted on social media soon after the event, saying the show continued.

“The cafe (and community) there is FANTASTIC, and racist outsiders came in to make it miserable,” Garland wrote on Twitter. “We prevailed and had a great time with the families anyway.”

Amid a surge of antisemitic words and actions in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel, Formella announced plans last month to step up enforcement against hate groups in the state, adding another attorney and additional staff to the Civil Rights Unit.

According to Formella, the Civil Rights Unit has seen a 465 percent increase in complaints and referrals over the last five years, from 40 to 186. He attributed the rise to various factors, including the increased racial and ethnic diversity, an increase in divisive political rhetoric, and “a rise in tension and conflict around the world.”

Last month, three women were arrested at the Elbit Systems facility in Merrimack after vandalizing the building, breaking windows, and setting off smoke bombs. Members of Palestine Action USA — Calla Walsh, 19, Bridget Shergalis, 27, and Sophie Ross, 22 — were charged with criminal trespass, riot, and sabotage for the incident.

Locke said his unit is working with Merrimack Police and the Hillsborough County Attorney’s Office. More charges in the case are possible, including hate crime charges.

“Any and all charges that can be brought will be bought,” Locke said.

When Formella announced the increase in resources in the Civil Rights Unit, which was made at Temple Beth Abraham in Nashua, NHJournal asked if the state’s hate crimes laws gave his office the authority to prosecute Palestine Action USA for any role it may have had in the Elbit attack.

“The answer is yes,” Formella said. “Organizations and entities can be held responsible for the acts of their members.”

Palestine Action USA is being bankrolled by multi-millionaire Communist James “Fergie” Chambers.

At the University of New Hampshire, Locke’s team is in contact with the Durham campus police department as several antisemitic incidents are currently under investigation. However, one incident in which students and faculty called for Jewish genocide is not being investigated.

UNH granted the Pro-Palestinian group Answer Coalition permission to hold a rally on Nov. 9, the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht, or Night of the Broken Glass.

Locke said the UNH Police Department has not asked for his assistance in that matter.

Locke is still trying to secure a win against NSC-131 for a July 2022 incident in which the group hung a banner with the message “Keep New England White” off a Route 1 overpass in Portsmouth. After the case was dismissed in court on free speech grounds, the Attorney General’s Office filed an appeal with the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

Locke said Wednesday he expects NSC-131 to raise the First Amendment in its defense, and he and his team are prepared to make their case.

“We expect the First Amendment is going to be an issue raised, and we certainly expect it to be raised,” Locke said.

Hood and his gang are facing a civil rights case in Massachusetts after the Bay State brought a case last week. The gang allegedly targeted LGBTQ events and immigrants.

Experts who monitor hate groups, like Kristopher Goldsmith’s Task Force Butler, said NSC-131 ought to be treated like a violent, terrorist gang by authorities. The group’s demonstrations feature assaults and escalating violent behavior, Goldsmith has said.

Hood, whose last address was in Newburyport, Mass., started NSC-131 after he was kicked out of the white supremacist group, Patriot Front. He also has reported ties to violent hate groups like The Base.

The Teatotaller case is first being filed with the New Hampshire Commission for Human Rights, and Locke said he is asking the commission to refer the complaint to the Superior Court for civil prosecution. He said he hopes the process will be done in the next 20 to 30 days.

One of the founders of Rainbow Reload, a New Hampshire-based group of LGBTQ people who teach others how to defend themselves with firearms, scoffs at the idea the organization is dangerous.

“All Rainbow Reload does is train, explain how guns work, and we make sure there is no political activity,” said Finn Sicaria, who uses the pronouns they/their. “We make sure it stays a comfortable space that everyone can access.”

It is part of the national movement “pink pistol” movement that can be traced back to an article at Salon.com by Jonathan Rauch.

Angered by violence against the LGBT community, Rauch wrote, “The gay movement often portrays homosexuals as helpless victims. Here’s an alternative: Arm them… If it became widely known that homosexuals carry guns and know how to use them, not many bullets would need to be fired.”

Sicaria is a pseudonym used while they sort out their gender identity transition. The 33-year-old says they moved to southern New Hampshire several years ago to get away from violence directed at queer people and to get away from local governments that restrict the right to bear arms.

“I’m never leaving,” Sicaria said.

After being a victim of an assault while in college in New Jersey, Sicaria went through the extensive process of getting a license to carry a pistol in that state. Later, Sicaria moved to Boston, hoping to find a home in the city’s gay community. Because of the Bay State’s own restrictive gun laws, Sicaria had to get rid of their guns.

“I had disarmed to move to Massachusetts, thinking I was making myself safer,” Sicaria said.

That was not the case. Sicaria said they were unsafe in Boston. Sicaria was subject to harassment and abuse, like being targeted with milkshakes or being spat on.

“I had this fantasy in my head that the communities could be isolated,” Sicaria said. “I learned to move fast and get out of the way.”

Sicaria soon found themselves again the victim of violence and left the city to stay with friends in New Hampshire to recover. Here in the Granite State, Sicaria was once again able to legally carry a gun.

“New Hampshire allows me to be who I am and to defend myself,” Sicaria said.

In New Hampshire, Sicrari became part of a like-minded community of people who wanted to be able to defend themselves. However, many in the group were unhappy with their options. Too many pro-Second Amendment groups were actively political and leaned too far to the right for Sicaria’s circle.

Rainbow Reload started as a way to teach other LGBTQ people how to use guns safely while steering clear of politics.

“We train queer people; that’s all we do,” Sicaria said.

Many of the people who come to Rainbow Reload meetings and training have themselves been victims of hate-oriented violence, Sicaria said. There is a desire among New Hampshire LGBTQ people to be able to defend themselves and their community, as well as an appreciation for New Hampshire’s respect for personal liberty and gun ownership.

The training usually occurs at a friendly gun range or a site in the woods.

Sicaria is not apolitical. They are trained as an EMT and serves as a  volunteer street medic for protests. Sicaria is also part of a community defense group that provides security at protests. Those actions are separate from Rainbow Reload, Sicaria insisted.

The community defense team typically operates at protests in a way not to be noticed, or in ninja mode, Sicaria said.

“If we did our job right, you have no idea we were there at all,” Sicaria said.

New Hampshire has seen an uptick in hate crimes over the past several years. The white supremacist group NSC-131 has taken root in the Granite State among others known hate groups. Two members of NSC-131 were recently charged with civil violations by New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella. Christopher Hood and Leo Anthony Cullinan were allegedly part of the NSC 131 demonstration on a Route 1 overpass in Portsmouth last July, during which they displayed a sign that read “Keep New England White.”

Sicaria said it is time for LGBTQ people to realize they need to defend themselves against the active hate groups that are operating in New England and beyond.

“There are angry Nazis with plate carriers and AR-15s, the people who hate us, and they have been training for years,” Sicaria said.

Sicaria is concerned about what they see as the rising angry rhetoric directed at queer people, which they fear could lead to violence.

“It’s hard to describe how it felt watching it slowly creep on,” Sicaria said.

Sicaria has no patience for those in the LGBTQ community who engage in violence, like the killer in the recent school shooting in Nashville. In the incident, a transgender person killed three children and three adults. Sicaria is angry with those on the left who argued that the shooter was justified because of anti-transgender rhetoric and violence.

“The shooter is a literal piece of f***ing sh**. A broken monster,” Sicaria said. “We need to eliminate the idea that this is something we can blame on any sort of discrimination. This is somebody who was a monster.”

Does attending Latin Mass make you more likely to support white supremacist violence?

That was the premise of a leaked FBI memo naming “Radical-Traditionalist Catholics” (RTCs) as a potential threat and outlining opportunities for agents to recruit assets within the Catholic Church.

The memo, which was disavowed by the FBI just days after it was leaked, singled out a New Hampshire-based community as a specific concern.

“The writer makes an unsubstantiated leap that a preference for the Catholic Mass in Latin instead of the vernacular and a number of more traditional views on other world religions can amount to an ‘adherence to anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ and white supremacist ideology,’” wrote former FBI agent Kyle Seraphin, who leaked the memo.

“Products like this can be used to support the opening of information-only cases, and there is no reason to expect Radical-Traditionalist Catholics are the end point of this train track – they will be the beginning. Opening the door to associating white supremacists with traditional religious practices based on common Christian positions on abortion and the LGBTQ political agendas is a dangerous step,” Seraphin added.

The memo lists several groups accused of harboring extreme views, including the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary based in Richmond, N.H. They are a splinter group from the original Slaves organization founded by the Rev. Leonard Feeney in the 1950s. Feeney held antisemitic beliefs and was for a time excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.

The leader of the Slaves, Louis Villarubia, who goes by Brother Andre Marie, has been accused of making antisemitic comments in the past. And the order’s strict adherence to the Catholic teaching of “no salvation outside the Church” is a violation of accepted Catholic doctrine. As a result, the group has been barred from calling themselves Catholic by Manchester Diocese Bishop Peter Libasci.

But Villarubia says simply holding unorthodox or unpopular beliefs is no reason to be targeted by the federal government.

“As a citizen of one of these United States—the great state of New Hampshire—I am appalled and outraged that some in America’s most powerful federal agency now propose to surveil peaceful, law-abiding Americans because of their traditional religious beliefs, the same beliefs which for Catholics, until a few generations ago, were held always and everywhere, by everyone,” Villarubbia said in a statement.

William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, said even if there are people with extreme views in the traditionalist community, they do not give up their First Amendment rights by virtue of being outliers.

“Some of these people may be kooky, but they are not exactly Antifa, about which the FBI has done little. So why the probe?” Donohue said.

Seraphin and Donohue see the memo as part of a larger anti-religion, anti-Catholic, anti-pro-life bias inside the federal government. Critics point to the recent case of Catholic father and pro-life activist Mark Houck who was charged with federal felonies for a scuffle outside a Philadelphia abortion clinic. Even though local prosecutors refused to charge Houck, the Biden Department of Justice sent an armed SWAT team to his home to arrest him and charge him with federal crimes. Houck, who had no criminal history, faced up to 11 years in prison.

It took the jury less than an hour to acquit him of all charges.

And if the civil rights of Catholics are under fire in New Hampshire, they can’t count on help from the state’s ACLU. Gilles Bissonnette, legal director at the NH ACLU, did not respond to a request for comment. The organization has been silent on the FBI’s proposal to infiltrate a religious Christian community. 

It is the same NH ACLU that was part of the lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s executive order imposing a 90-day ban on travel to the U.S. from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

A group of Republican attorneys general is pushing back, signing on to a letter written by Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares to FBI Director Christopher Wray and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland calling out anti-Catholic bigotry.

“Anti-Catholic bigotry appears to be festering in the FBI, and the Bureau is treating Catholics as potential terrorists because of their beliefs,” Miyares wrote.

State Rep. Manny Espitia (D-Nashua), an outspoken progressive caught in the center of the recent State House drama in the Democratic caucus, has announced he is not seeking reelection. 

“It breaks my heart to not be seeking another term, but I have some commitments that would make it very difficult to spend another two years in the State House,” Espitia wrote on social media.

Espitia made headlines earlier this year when he released a statement suggesting that Black men face heightened danger in the presence of police officers. Soon after, Democratic leadership appointed him to the Criminal Justice committee.

Espitia will remain president of the New Hampshire Young Democrats and said he is working to win back the House majority from the GOP. He said his decision for the coming election is not the end of his political career.

“I doubt this will be the last time I run for the State House, but I’ll be back someday,” Espitia wrote.

News of his departure inspired a show of support from his fellow Democrats.

State Rep. Catherine Rombeau (D-Bedford) thanked Espitia for his leadership and his mentorship.

“Thank you, Manny, for your service, your patience, and your good humor. I’ve learned so much from your leadership (and doubt I’d be trying again without having your encouragement over the years)!” she wrote.

 State Rep. Jan Schmidt (D-Nashua) blamed the $100 a year salary paid to New Hampshire lawmakers.

“If we could actually pay legislators a decent wage we could keep amazing people like you, Manny,” Schmidt wrote on Facebook. “You bring so much to the House and give the position all your heart, oh, what a marvelous Speaker you will be someday, or senator, or governor, or member of Congress. Your world is open and you have our love going forward. Thank you.”

Espitia started his political career working for Nashua Mayor Jim Donchess. Last year, when a neo-Nazi group began posting racist graffiti in his neighborhood, Espitia called them out. Someone claiming to be with the NSC 131 organization responded on social media:

“Anyone w/a name like ‘Manny Espitia’, State Rep or not, has no moral right to throw shade at any true (White) Nationalist New Hampshirite. You have no right to be here, you’re an occupier here & the days of these types trampling on New England are coming to an end,” the anonymous NSC 131 poster wrote.

A subsequent investigation by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office and federal law enforcement failed to result in any arrests.

Espitia has also had his own problematic moments. He became embroiled in the controversy surrounding State Rep. Nicole Klein Knight after she repeatedly used the “n-word” in an encounter with a young, Black activist in the State House. Klein Knight eventually called for security, an action Espitia found offensive.

“She engaged in degrading, bigoted behavior against a young Black man,” Espitia wrote in a public statement, “eventually calling security on him, despite being fully cognizant of the heightened dangers Black men face in this country in the presence of law enforcement.”

After the anti-cop comments were reported by NHJournal, Espitia issued an apology. He also blamed NHJournal for the controversy, and then-House Minority Leader Robert Renny Cushing (D-Hampton) ordered House Democrats to boycott NHJournal in retaliation for the reporting.

Espitia did not offer any explanation as to why, a few months later, he did an about-face and apologized to Klein Knight.

“On Feb. 2, I accused her of calling House security as retaliation against a young man. She has explained that she had been genuinely scared for her safety and I apologize for accusing her of such action,” Espitia wrote in the apology issued last month.

And Espitia also declined to join his fellow Hispanics who have publicly denounced U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan and U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas for embracing the “racist” border policies of the Trump administration, in particular Title 42. After Hassan made a campaign video in front of the Trump-built border wall, prominent members of the state’s Hispanic community like state Rep. Maria Perez (D-Milford) and Eva Castillo of the MIRA Coalition resigned from the New Hampshire Democratic Latino Caucus in response.

Espitia has yet to publicly criticize his fellow Democrats over their new tough-on-illegal-immigration stance.