Lombard man pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit terrorism at village complex
A Lombard man pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiracy to commit terrorism for carrying a firebomb toward Lombard's municipal complex on a night when people were rioting and looting in Chicago and the suburbs.
Christian Frazee, 27, was sentenced to 10 years in prison by Judge Michael Reidy, according to a news release from the DuPage County state's attorney's office.
Frazee also pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography, for which he will serve three years in prison at the same time.
Police said they had extra officers on duty the weekend of May 31, 2020, due to protests and unrest in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white Minnesota police officer.
A Lombard officer was on patrol around 12:27 a.m. June 1, 2020, and saw Frazee walking toward parked squad cars and village workers' cars with a bat sticking out of his bag. Frazee was carrying a lighter in one hand and a Molotov cocktail in the other. Police found a butane lighter and seven other lighters in his possession when they arrested him.
A Chicago-based criminal justice reform organization posted $100,000 as bond to free him.
While investigating the terrorism case, police said they found hundreds of images and videos of child pornography on his cellphone. He was arrested in December 2020. Bail on that case was set at $500,000, and Frazee has been in the DuPage County jail since his arrest.
He will be required to register for life as a sex offender.
"Judge Reidy's sentence today sends the message that criminal activity under the guise of legitimate protests is still criminal activity and will not be tolerated in DuPage County," State's Attorney Robert Berlin said in the release.