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Exclusive: The father of 20-year-old Lucas Alexander Temple, who was there when his son was arrested, told The Independent that he didn’t want to “inadvertently say anything that might hurt his case.”
Justin RohrlichMonday 24 November 2025 20:56 GMT
open image in galleryA Florida man is accused of making threats, including torturing children. If convicted, 20-year-old Lucas Alexander Temple (bottom left) is facing up to a decade behind bars. (Department of Justice)
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A 20-year-old Florida man using the online handle “Devilwaffen999” discussed the idea of torturing non-white children, sexually assaulting a man with an electrified baton, and provided bomb-making instructions to associates in a neo-Nazi group chat that the members didn’t realize was under surveillance by the feds, according to court filings reviewed by The Independent.
Grocery store worker Lucas Alexander Temple was arrested November 20 at his parents’ Sarasota home, where he lives, on one count of possession of an unregistered firearm after FBI agents found, among other things, an illegal sawed-off shotgun in his bedroom, a probable cause affidavit shows.
Agents additionally turned up various pieces of Nazi literature; the diaries of Columbine school shooters Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris; a book titled Two-Component High Explosive Mixtures; a WWII-era sign reading “Kommandant” and bookended by lightning-bolt “SS” logos; and a “large flag” bearing the Atomwaffen Division symbol, the affidavit states.
They also discovered what appeared to be a plan to carry out and broadcast a domestic terror attack, including “motion-activated bombs in doorways (for cops),” according to the affidavit, which includes photographs of the items.
“Write manifesto. Notify friends of livestream. Put flags on car. Play music on speakers during operation,” it read.
open image in galleryA Florida man is accused of making threats, including torturing children. Some of the items found in Lucas Alexander Temple's bedroom, according to the FBI (Department of Justice)The Atomwaffen Division, which renamed itself the National Socialist Order after a series of arrests largely dismantled the group, is an accelerationist organization inspired by the tenets of neo-Nazi James Mason’s 1992 publication Siege, according to a case study from the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center at the University of Nebraska, Omaha.
It says Atomwaffen is “primarily driven by racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism,” and “ultimately aims to accelerate societal collapse through chaos and violence as a means to establish a ‘racially pure’ white society, which adherents believe can only be established through the destruction of American democracy.”
The FBI affidavit describes the group’s targets as having included racial minorities, Jews, the LGBTQ+ community, the U.S. government, journalists, and critical infrastructure, such as energy facilities.
Reached by phone, Temple’s 63-year-old father, who was in the house when the FBI arrived to execute a search warrant last Thursday, told The Independent that he didn’t want to comment “out of respect for my son and his privacy,” and “not wanting to inadvertently say anything that might hurt his case.” He did say, however, that seeing his son arrested and charged was the “hardest thing we’ve ever gone through.”
In late March, the FBI probable cause affidavit says the bureau “became aware of” a Signal group chat called “Todestampf Division,” a German word that translates to “death stomp.” In it, agents spotted a post by a member who at the time was calling himself “Micah Fischer,” which contained a diagram of how to make a detonator, according to the probable cause affidavit.
open image in galleryTemple scrawled an alleged plot to livestream a terror attack, which the FBI says it discovered in his bedroom (Department of Justice)The following month, while monitoring a second Signal group chat called “Neue Ordnung,” the FBI homed in on a participant using the screenname “Devilwaffen999,” the affidavit continues.
“‘Neue Ordnung’ means ‘New Order’ in German and refers a neo-Nazi movement in Germany that has been investigated for terrorism,” the affidavit states.
It says Devilwaffen999 “advocated, among other things, for rape and use of explosives,” and when the chat’s administrator, “AdolfHitlerSS,” made Devilwaffen999 a co-administrator, agents were able to determine that Devilwaffen999 and “Micah Fischer” were the same person.
In various online discussions, Devilwaffen999 excitedly asked for directions about building a pipe bomb, posted links to YouTube videos showing how to make TNT and how to construct homemade blasting caps, according to the affidavit. (The FBI’s Explosives Unit reviewed both videos and said they provided “sufficient information” to complete each task successfully, the affidavit contends.)
Devilwaffen999, who also sometimes went by, simply, “Devilwaffen,” was active in the chats, at one point sharing a 122-page neo-Nazi handbook professing a need to “secure the existence of white martyrs and genocide planet to total perfection,” the affidavit goes on. He also chatted about torturing children, “but only if they’re [N-words],” and in response to an unidentified user who posted about “frat guys and annoying chicks everywhere,” Temple wrote, “Gross,” and “Must exterminate.”
open image in galleryThe FBI was able to positively identify Temple by comparing his driver's license photos to surveillance footage of him visiting a local museum with his family. (Department of Justice)When another member said someone’s “husband should be killed,” Temple chimed in with, “How about rape him with stun stick[?]” He also recommended an unidentified user “kill someone/something” in order to “release your stress,” the affidavit states.
A screenshot of a separate chat between Devilwaffen999 and AdolfHitlerSS shows Devilwaffen999 asking, “How long would it take to rape a femboy to death? I don't know if my d**k can take it.”
The FBI was able to pin down Temple’s real-life identity via clues he left about himself in the chats, according to the affidavit. It says he told others that he celebrated his 20th birthday in October, that he lived in South Florida, that he worked at a grocery store and that he visited a museum with family on June 9.
Agents mined driver’s license records, which showed Temple was born in October 2005, and pulled his photos from the DMV database. They then obtained security video from the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, and found “an individual bearing physical similarity to Temple” who was there on June 9, the affidavit says. A stakeout team physically verified Temple’s address, and on November 19, a federal magistrate signed an arrest warrant for Temple charging him with distribution of information pertaining to manufacture of explosives.
open image in galleryA sawed-off shotgun the FBI says agents found in Temple's bedroom (Department of Justice)The next morning, federal agents showed up to take Temple into custody, according to the affidavit. It says his parents gave agents permission to search the premises, but that Temple “denied consent to search his room.” So, the FBI got a warrant, and soon discovered the Atomwaffen flag, Nazi items, Columbine journals and to-do list for the livestreamed attack, the affidavit states.
But after they found a sawed-off Springfield Model 67 Series E shotgun, along with “what appear[ed] to be the remainder of the barrel that was sawed off,” prosecutors filed a superseding complaint charging Temple with illegal weapons possession.
“According to the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record, on or before November 20, 2025, TEMPLE was not a registered owner of the sawedoff shotgun described above,” the affidavit concludes.
In an email, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida, which is prosecuting the case, confirmed the updated charge against Temple.
If convicted, Temple faces up to 10 years in prison.
