Emily Claire Hari, formerly known as Michael B. Hari, of Clarence, Illinois, pleaded guilty (Wednesday) to conspiracy to interfere with commerce by threats and violence, attempted arson, unlawful possession of a machinegun, and unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon.
The 50-year-old Hari faces sentencing June 13, 2022, at 1 p.m. at the U.S. Courthouse in Urbana.

Hari admitted guilt to all four charges contained in the indictment. The government case stated that in 2017, Hari started a militia group called the “Patriot Freedom Fighters,” and which sometime later went by the nickname the “White Rabbits.” Hari, who served as its founder and leader of the militia group included convicted conspirators Michael McWhorter, Joe Morris, Ellis J. Mack, and Wesley Johnson.

Prosecutors claimed the conspirators began engaging in repeated criminal acts of violence, which they referred to as “jobs.” As part of their militia activities, the conspirators obtained materials used to make incendiary devices, provided weapons and uniforms to the conspirators, and assigned rank to the conspirators to assist in their militia activities. The conspirators acquired weapons which were stored in a locked safe in the militia group’s “office” in Clarence.

The federal case charged the group with trying to bomb a women’s health center in Champaign.
Two of the conspirators traveled to Wal-Mart stores in Watseka and Mt. Vernon and armed with weapons robbed the stores. They also attempted to sabotage railroad tracks along the Canadian National Railway threatening that that there would be more damage inflicted by the conspirators to railroad tracks if the railroad did not pay the conspirators approximately $190,000 in cryptocurrency.

Hari remains in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service pending sentencing in the Central District of Illinois. In December 2020, following a jury trial, Hari was convicted of charges related to the August 2017 firebombing of a mosque in Minnesota, along with McWhorter and Morris. A federal judge in Minnesota previously sentenced Hari to fifty-three years of imprisonment for those charges.

Hari faces statutory penalties of a minimum five-year to maximum twenty-year term of imprisonment for the attempted arson of the Women’s Health Practice, a maximum twenty-year term of imprisonment for conspiracy to interfere with commerce by threats and violence, and a maximum ten-year term of imprisonment for the firearms charges.

94.1 WGFA