YORK, PA NAZI LOOKING AT THREE YEARS AFTER BULLETPROOF VEST CONVICTION

Awww. Poor Michael Cook. He says he’s being persecuted for his beliefs. Well, if your beliefs including persecuting people for their beliefs or color, don’t expect too much sympathy. For those who need to be brought up to speed. Cook was the bonehead associate of Matt Hale, the former head of the World Church of the Creator that is currently sitting in jail for the next 40 years for conspiring to kill a federal judge. Cook was responsible for bringing him and every bonehead and antifa within 500 miles to York, PA on Jan 12, 2002 for what he called a public meeting at a library but ended up being a public brawl between opposing groups. Cook went on to become a bit of a loudmouthed pariah in his local area, trying to start one white supremacist group after another, but that may be on hiatus now that he was convicted of illegally possesing body armor, which after a conviction of making terroristic threats, he wasn’t allowed to do. He says he plans to appeal, but if he is going to try and say that his conviction is due to him being a Nazi, that won’t be good enough. So he might as well get himself used to spending up to the next three years at the York County Correctional Facility. Ironically, we actually went to that prison to meet someone who was locked up for his political beliefs. Don’t expect a visit from us though, Mike.

A Wrightsville man who helped to bring a white supremacist to York nearly a decade ago was found guilty April 21 of illegally possessing body armor.

Michael Wayne Cook bought a ballistic vest at a gun show in Harrisburg five years ago, but he wasn’t allowed to own one under federal law because of his previous convictions of making terroristic threats and destroying property, according to a news release from the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

A jury rendered the guilty verdict after deliberating for 30 minutes, according to a news release and court documents. Cook faces up to three years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Cook, 43, said that he plans to appeal the conviction. He said he was railroaded by the government just as Matthew Hale was.

Hale, the former leader of the white supremacist organization World Church of the Creator, is in prison for trying to solicit a judge’s murder.

Cook helped to bring Hale to York in 2002. Hale’s visit sparked clashes in the streets between supremacists and protesters.

“It’s not over yet,” Cook said of his conviction. “We’re going to fight.”

In December 2006, the FBI opened an investigation into Cook based on intelligence that he was contemplating taking revenge for the 2004 arrest and conviction of Hale, according to court documents.

A few months later, James Lewis, a prominent member of the Ku Klux Klan in Pennsylvania, approached the FBI, saying that he was renouncing his white supremacist views and claiming that he had information on Cook and others.

The FBI enlisted the man as a confidential source and gave him the code name “Cyclops,” the document states. Over the next 1½ years, Lewis informed the FBI on a regular basis about Cook’s activities and on a number of occasions, participated in consensual recordings of his conversations with Cook.

During many of those conversations, Cook made statements regarding the use of violence against the people responsible for Hale’s arrest and conviction and about racially-motivated violence in general, court documents state.

In connection with those statements, Cook discussed buying firearms, particularly AK-47 or AR-15 assault rifles, for himself and other members of the militant wing of the Creativity Movement.

Cook and Lewis attended a gun show in Harrisburg in March 2007, and the source wore a recording device. It picked up audio of Cook buying a bullet-proof vest.

FBI agents were conducting surveillance at the show and had planned to arrest Cook if he bought a firearm.

On the ride home, Cook told someone during a telephone conversation that he had just bought a bullet-proof vest, that the faction of the KKK of which he is a member is a “militant Klan,” and that he planned to buy a number of “air soft” guns to train with because they are cheaper than training with real ones.

Later that year, he talked with the source about buying another bullet proof vest at an upcoming gun show and said “the white race needs to win the upcoming racial holy war.”

In March 2008, he told Lewis that it’s a good thing to be armed, have military training and be ready in case of ethnic conflict, according to court documents. He said he intends to continue training with air soft weapons will have the real thing at his house or in the trunk of his car in case he needs it.

Cook called the allegations in the court documents “lies” and “exaggerations.”

The government set a trap for him, trying to get him to buy a gun, which he didn’t do, Cook said.

“The question is: Who’s guilty of a crime here?” he said.

Cook said he had no idea that the vest he bought was illegal. He doesn’t even know if it was bullet-proof.

He said he bought it for self-protection. He had been interested in forming an air soft group – “air soft is the new paintball” – and the pellets sting, Cook said.

Cook said he later sold the vest at a gun show, and the prosecution did not physically have it for the trial.

“I feel I’m being persecuted for my beliefs,” Cook said.