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Nov. 2 (UPI) -- A U.S. Army veteran has been sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for plotting to bomb a 2019 rally in Long Beach, Calif. Mark Steven Domingo, 28, of Reseda, was sentenced Monday, the Department of Justice announced in a statement Tuesday.
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He was convicted in August of plotting to bomb a California White nationalist rally in 2019.
The Justice Department said in a statement then that he was found guilty of providing material support to terrorism and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.
The Army veteran who had been deployed to Afghanistan was arrested on April 26, 2019.
Authorities began to investigate Domingo based on posts he made online in March 2019, calling for retribution following the shooting deaths of 51 people by a White nationalist at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
"According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, the investigation into Domingo was prompted by Domingo's online posts and conversations in an online forum, in which he expressed support for violence, specifically a desire to seek violent retribution for attacks against Muslims, and a willingness to become a martyr," the Justice Department said in a statement.
Domingo decided to bomb the Long Beach rally in April 2019 after discussing various targets, including Jewish people, churches and police officers, according to the statement.
He asked someone, who was actually an undercover FBI agent, to invite a bomb maker, who ended up being another undercover agent, into the scheme and provided them 3-1/2-inch nails to use as shrapnel in the device "because they were long enough to penetrate organs in the human body," the statement continued.
On April 26, 2019, Domingo received what he believed were two live bombs, but were actually inert explosive devices. He was arrested the same day with one of the bombs in his hands.
