CHICAGO — Three activists who traveled to Chicago for a NATO summit were accused Saturday of manufacturing Molotov cocktails in a plot to attack President Barack Obama’s campaign headquarters, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s home and other targets.
Defense lawyers in court shot back that Chicago police had trumped up the charges to frighten peaceful protesters away, telling a judge it was undercover officers known by the activists as “Mo” and “Gloves” who brought the firebombs to a South Side apartment where the men were arrested.
Prosecutors said the men were self-described anarchists who boasted weeks earlier about the damage they would do in Chicago, including one who declared, “After NATO, the city will never be the same.”
The suspects are Jared Chase, 24, of Keene, N.H.; Brent Vincent Betterly, 24, of Oakland Park, Fla.; and, Brian Church, 20, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. They were each being held on $1.5 million bail. If convicted, the men could get up to 85 years in prison. The Associated Press
