MIAMI — Before FBI agents and Fort Lauderdale police arrested Paul Miller at his home in March, the U.S. Justice Department says, he made clear he would back starting “a race-based civil war in the United States.”
The white supremacist won’t be starting anything soon other than prison jobs and his federal prison sentence, three years and five months, received Tuesday. Miller, 33, pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm as a convicted felon, possession of ammunition as a convicted felon and possession of an unregistered firearm (a short-barreled rifle).
In March, the Anti-Defamation League called Miller a “volatile white supremacist-accelerationist” months before his arrest. FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force members were part of the group that arrested Miller, who went by GypsyCrusader on the Telegram app.
Miller described his alter ego as an “investigative journalist” with “News for Patriots Christians and God loving Americans.” Swastikas, racial slurs against Black and Jewish people and “White Power!” signoffs were common among his videos there.
Miller “made hundreds of internet posts publicizing his animosity towards various minority groups and his support for the initiation of a race-based civil war in the United States,” Justice wrote in the release announcing his sentence.
According to his guilty plea admission of facts, in January 2018, Miller fired a Glock 19 9mm pistol during firearms training after moving from New Jersey to Fort Lauderdale. As the Glock was made outside Florida, federal prosecutors could claim the gun was involved in interstate commerce, allowing them to put Miller’s prosecution on their plate.
A week later, Miller applied for a Florida concealed weapons license. He stated he had completed firearms training (true) and that he’d never been convicted of a felony (false).
The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Division of Licensing found the lie. New Jersey online court records show felony convictions on drug manufacturing and distribution charges in 2007 and 2009. The department rejected Miller’s application.
At the March 2 bust, arresting officers found 842 rounds of ammunition. In the dryer, Miller had clothes and, his admission states, “a disassembled short-barreled rifle; a lower receiver for an AR-15-style assault rifle attached to a collapsible rifle stock and disassembled from an upper receiver featuring a 10.5-inch barrel next to a magazine loaded with 5.56x45 mm-rifle caliber ammunition.”
None of the parts had serial numbers.
Miller “admitted that he had built a rifle by purchasing parts and watching YouTube tutorials,” but when he took the rifle to a range in Florida, he fired one round before it jammed.
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