Neo-Nazi known as ‘Commander Butcher’ gets 15 years over plots targeting Jews in NYC

JTA – A Georgian neo-Nazi leader known as “Commander Butcher” was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Wednesday for soliciting hate crimes tied to plots targeting Jews and other minorities in New York City, including a scheme to poison Jewish children. 

Michail Chkhikvishvili, 22, a leader of a white supremacist extremist group known as the Maniac Murder Cult, was sentenced in federal court in Brooklyn after pleading guilty last year to soliciting hate crimes and distributing instructions to make bombs and the toxin ricin. 

“The defendant is not sentenced because of his warped views,” US District Judge Carol Bagley Amon said. “He is being sentenced for his calls to action.” 

The charges stemmed from a series of attacks plotted by Chkhikvishvili ‒ who travelled to Brooklyn in June 2022 ‒ including a November 2023 plan to commit a mass-casualty attack in New York City, and a January 2024 scheme to target Jewish schools and children with poisoned candy. 

Chkhikvishvili was arrested in Chișinău, Moldova, in July 2024 on an Interpol arrest warrant and extradited to the United States. 

According to the Department of Justice, Chkhikvishvili incited at least two violent attacks, including a 2024 stabbing outside a mosque in Turkey and a 2025 shooting at a high school in Tennessee. 

“As a leader of the white supremacist group ‘Maniac Murder Cult,’ this defendant concocted hate-fuelled, mass-casualty plans and inspired others to commit attacks based on his vile rhetoric,” said New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. “This violent extremist’s intentions were clear: harm and kill as many Jews and racial groups as possible.”