MARTINEZ — A Concord man who was arrested after making anti-Semitic threats of a mass shooting on an online video game forum was convicted for four felonies and a misdemeanor this week, prosecutors said.
Ross Farca, 25, was convicted of possessing an assault rifle he allegedly made himself, as well as making criminal threats online and threatening the Concord officer who investigated his case during a search of his home. Farca was also convicted of a hate crime, prosecutors said.
Farca was arrested two years ago after he allegedly used a screenname with a reference to Adolf Hitler and the estimated 6 million people killed in the Holocaust to make a series of anti-Semitic threats on the video game platform Steam. Farca allegedly talked about wanting to shoot up a synagogue and kill “at least” 30 people. He also described the Christchurch, New Zealand mosque shooter as a “hero,” authorities said.
Farca’s attorney, Joseph Tully, argued from the case’s start that his client — who suffers from a mental illness — was merely “trolling” people online and would change his purported ideology to offend whoever he happened to be talking to. For instance, he posted a drawing of Hitler in a pink dress and wrote the Nazis lost the war due to having an “inferior ideology” to offend a neo-Nazi on another online forum.
When authorities searched Farca’s home in the 2100 block of Calgary Lane in Concord, they reportedly found a homemade assault rifle, along with 13 magazines, a three-foot sword, camouflage clothes, pistol ammunition, a hunting knife, and books about Hitler youth and Nazi life, according to police.
Months after the Contra Costa District Attorney filed charges against Farca, the U.S. Attorney’s office charged him with lying to get into the military. Farca pleaded guilty to a federal offense last year, and has already served his sentence.
Farca has been remanded to county jail and is awaiting sentencing on Dec. 29, authorities said.
“Ross Farca’s criminality disrupted the lives of countless members of the Jewish faith within our community, “ DA Diana Becton said in a written statement as part of a news release. “Hate crimes and threats of this magnitude will not be tolerated.”
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