DALLAS — A Wichita Falls man accused of plotting to blow up an Amazon Web Services data center in Virginia was arrested Thursday.
Seth Aaron Pendley, 28, spent months planning how he would disguise his car for the trip to and from Virginia, where he would detonate explosives in an attempt to crash most of the nation’s internet, according to a federal criminal complaint made public Friday.
Pendley appeared Friday morning before a federal magistrate judge. He faces as much as 20 years in federal prison if convicted. The Federal Public Defender Office was appointed to represent him. A lawyer with the office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
FBI investigators became aware of Pendley in January when a tipster reported a user of the online forum mymilitia.com who went by “Dionysus.” The tipster had screenshots of Dionysus’ posts talking about his participation in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and future plans of causing death through a “little experiment,” according to the complaint written by FBI Special Agent John Coycle and signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Cureton.
Investigators were able to link the account for Dionysus to Pendley, according to the complaint. Pendley also ranted on his Facebook account about the Democratic Party and “people in power” who “changed society in a way that no longer served the American people” and showed support for former President Donald Trump, according to excerpts provided in the complaint.
Investigators retrieved private messages from Facebook through search warrants that showed that Pendley planned to take a sawed-off AR rifle to D.C., even though at least one person he communicated with advised against it, according to the complaint.
After the Jan. 6 insurrection, Pendley messaged friends and said he went as far as the “platform” of the Capitol and took a piece of glass from a broken window, according to the complaint. He shared a photo in another message showing a crowd of people on the Capitol steps and some on top of a police vehicle, the complaint said.
Pendley started communicating with a confidential informant in late January on the messaging app Signal, the complain states. The informant told investigators that Pendley was planning an explosive attack on Amazon Web Services data centers and provided screenshots of their conversations.
“Oh yeah if I had cancer or something I would just drive a bomb into these servers lol,” Pendley is shown saying in one conversation, according to court records.
Pendley told the informant that he planned to paint his silver Pontiac black before driving to Virginia, where he would switch license plates before the attack and then paint the vehicle silver again to confuse law enforcement, according to the complaint.
On March 31, Pendley met in Fort Worth with the informant and an undercover FBI agent posing as an explosives supplier for a meeting that Pendley believed was meant for planning the attack, according to the complaint. Pendley arrived in a freshly painted black Pontiac.
During the meeting, which the agent recorded, Pendley said he hoped to interrupt 70% of the nation’s internet service, according to the complaint.
Pendley also said at the meeting that he participated in the Capitol riot but did not go inside the building, the complaint states. He said he took an AR rifle to D.C. but left it in his car during the riot. Pendley has not been arrested in connection with the insurrection.
The undercover agent agreed to supply Pendley with explosives, the complaint says. They met again on Thursday in Fort Worth and the agent gave him inert devices that he said were made of plastic explosives and demonstrated how to detonate them. Pendley accepted the devices and put them in his car, at which point FBI investigators approached and arrested him.
Pendley admitted in an interview with investigators to planning an attack on a data center, according to the complaint. The FBI also found hand-drawn maps and notes detailing his plans as well as wigs, masks, a pistol painted to pass as a toy gun, a sawed-off AR rifle and a machete.
“We are indebted to the concerned citizen who came forward to report the defendant’s alarming online rhetoric. In flagging his posts to the FBI, this individual may have saved the lives of a number of tech workers,” Acting U.S. Attorney Prerak Shah said. “We are also incredibly proud of our FBI partners, who ensured that the defendant was apprehended with an inert explosive device before he could inflict real harm.”
“The Justice Department is determined to apprehend domestic extremists who intend to commit violence, no matter what political sentiment drives them to do so,” Shah said.
Amazon also issued a statement Friday, thanking the FBI for its work on the case.
“We take the safety and security of our staff and customer data incredibly seriously, and constantly review various vectors for any potential threats,” an Amazon Web Services spokesperson said. “We will continue to retain this vigilance about our employees and customers.”