Audrey Illeene Carroll, 30, of South Los Angeles, Zachary Aaron Page, 32, of Torrance, Dante James Anthony Gaffield, 24, of South Los Angeles, and Tina Lai, 41, of Glendale are each charged with one count of providing and attempting to provide material support to terrorists, and one count of possession of unregistered firearms. Carroll and Page are also charged with one count of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction.

All four defendants are in federal custody without bond. Lai’s arraignment is scheduled for January 2, Carroll and Page on January 5, and Gaffield on January 20. The arraignments will take place in the U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles.

“The charges a federal grand jury returned today reflect the seriousness of the conduct: a planned terrorist attack on American soil on New Year’s Eve,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli. “If convicted, this group of self-professed left-wing radicals will face decades in federal prison. We will continue to investigate and prosecute any and all terror groups and bring them to justice.”

FBI agents arrested the four defendants on December 12 in the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County. The defendants were allegedly building and testing explosives as part of the New Year’s Eve plot.

The defendants are all members of the “radical, anti-government Turtle Island Liberation Front,” Essayli said.

Authorities claim the group is a “far-left pro-Palestinian, anti-government, and anti-capitalist organization” that also allegedly advocates for attacks targeting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and vehicles.

The New Year’s Eve bombing plot was designed to “completely pulverize” the targets, which included technology and logistics companies with offices across Southern California. After drafting the bombing plot, Carroll recruited others — including Page, Gaffield, and Lai — to join the attack plan, according to prosecutors.

The defendants allegedly had a handwritten plan that laid out how complex pipe bombs were to be used in the New Year’s Eve scheme, including instructions on how to manufacture the explosive devices, and guidance to avoid leaving evidence behind that could be traced back to the group, according to the criminal complaint.

Carroll and Page led the bomb-building efforts and recruited others to join their scheme, Essayli said. Many of the components needed for the explosive devices were purchased by Carroll on Amazon, according to the complaint.

Prior to the desert meetup, the defendants allegedly used a Signal messaging group called the “Order of the Black Lotus” to discuss the bombing plot, including the plan to test explosive devices in the Mojave Desert, according to the criminal complaint.

The Order of the Black Lotus is a faction of the Turtle Island Liberation Front that Essayli described as “even more radical.”

Carroll also allegedly operated an Instagram account, @turtleislandliberationfrontla, which includes the tagline “Liberation through decolonization and tribal sovereignty.”

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Trevor Lyons told the dad he would like to speak with his 12-year-old daughter, saying, “I’d love to see how much of a freak she is,” according to court documents. Lyons is accused of then adding the daughter as a friend on Discord and asking her if she would perform sex acts on him. The agent, meanwhile, was secretly controlling both accounts.

Lyons, 41, was arrested Monday and is accused of producing and distributing child pornography from around May 2020 to December 2024.

A federal grand jury charged him in a nine-count felony indictment with sexual exploitation, attempted sexual exploitation of a child to produce sexually explicit visuals, attempted enticement of a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity, and distribution of child pornography.

If convicted as charged, he faces a maximum sentence of life behind bars.

The undercover agent began exchanging messages with Lyons in a group chat on the Kik messaging app in August 2024, when the agent posed as a 43-year-old man with the username “UC Dad,” according to the indictment.

Lyons allegedly told UC Dad that he had a 17-year-old daughter of his own and asked UC Dad how old his daughter was. When UC Dad said 12, Lyons responded, “Oooof. A tad young but do you have pics? I have pics from when mine was 15,” according to the indictment.

Lyons continued to have conversations of a sexual nature with UC Dad on Telegram that month, according to the indictment.

On Sept. 9, 2024, Lyons allegedly added the girl as a friend on Discord and then asked her age, to which the undercover agent responded, “12.”

He told her he was 40 and asked if she liked older guys and whether she had seen a penis before, the indictment said. The conversation continued to escalate.

He asked if she had performed oral sex and offered to teach her, the indictment said. He also sent an explicit photo and video before asking her to perform oral sex on him, according to the indictment.

On Dec. 17, 2024, law enforcement officers seized a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4, an iPhone 16 and an iPad 3 from Lyons.

The indictment, which was filed in August, details a long record of child pornography allegedly distributed by Lyons as well as a May 2020 incident in which he is accusing of coercing a minor to engage in sexually explicit acts for photos that would be distributed as pornography. According to the indictment, he used a variety of usernames online, including Carly, Herbdoc and DeFi Samurai.

Lyons was arrested by the FBI’s Ventura Child Exploitation Human Trafficking Task Force, a collaboration between the FBI and regional law enforcement agencies to rescue minor victims and investigate and arrest those involved in child exploitation and human trafficking. The task force recently arrested six additional people in Ventura County during a two-week operation in August targeting the production, distribution and possession of child sexual abuse material.

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The indictment accuses the suspects of trying to sneak fentanyl, methamphetamine and heroin into the facility by hiding the drugs inside of people who purposefully got themselves arrested. Fentanyl-laced pills could be sold in jail at 10 times the regular street price, according to the Department of Justice. 

“The smuggling of drugs into our jails, particularly with the emergence of fentanyl, has dramatically increased inmate deaths and medical emergencies within our corrections division,” Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said. 

The suspects face a minimum of five years in prison if convicted as charged. 

Federal investigators do not know when the alleged drug smuggling scheme started but know it continued into late 2022 after they intercepted phone calls where people talked about sneaking drugs into a Riverside County custody facility. They named Andrew Jesus Ayala, 46, the scheme’s alleged mastermind, according to the indictment. 

Ayala and a Riverside street gang would recruit people willing to smuggle the drugs inside their bodies. The crew would arrange temporary housing for the drug mules before and after they purposely got arrested to deliver the drugs, according to the indictment. 

In one instance, a suspect tried to smuggle 1.75 ounces of meth inside of his body. However, an X-ray machine revealed the contraband. 

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According to the U.S. Department of Justice, a grand jury indicted 23-year-old Collin John Thomas Walker of Bridgeton, New Jersey, and 41-year-old Clint Jordan Lopaka Nahooikaika Borge of Pahoa, Hawaii for their alleged role in a child exploitation cult that groomed children online and coerced at least 16 young victims to create child sexual abuse material and images of self-harm.

The charges are linked to two earlier indictments unsealed Thursday involving 28-year-old Rohan Sandeep Rane of Antibes, France, and 24-year-old Kaleb Christopher Merritt of Spring, Texas. All four men are in custody.

“The defendants here are alleged to have committed horrific acts against children,” said Acting United States Attorney Joseph T. McNally.

“Sextortion and other forms of online child sexual abuse have tragically altered the trajectory of too many young lives and this group preyed upon the vulnerable to fulfill their sick and twisted desires,” said Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Los Angeles Special Agent in Charge Eddy Wang. “HSI and our partners will work tirelessly to protect children from victimization in communities across the United States and around the globe.”

According to the indictment, the men are members of CVLT — pronounced cult — which is an online group centered on neo-Nazism, pedophilia and nihilism. CVLT members participated in their online child exploitation activities because they wanted to create an army of sadist followers, according to the justice department.

They targeted vulnerable children and exposed them to extreme videos of rape and the torture of animals to desensitize the children to sadistic violence, federal prosecutors said.

According to the indictment, the men then used threats and coercion to get children to create videos of extreme self-debasement, such as hurting themselves and eating their own hair and using razor blades to carve CVLT members’ names into their skin. They escalated the scope of what they asked of the youth, “…encouraging children to harm themselves and others, in order to desensitize them to extreme and violent acts, such as punching themselves, hanging themselves with belts, engaging in sexual or violent acts with their pets, and – eventually – escalating to killing themselves on livestream.”

The group then blackmailed the children with those images to produce child sexual abuse videos involving themselves, other children and animals, according to the indictment.

“When victims hesitated, resisted or threatened to tell parents or authorities, CVLT members would threaten to distribute already-obtained compromising photos and videos of the victims to their family and friends,” the U.S. Justice Department announced in a written statement. “For victims who stopped participating in the CSAM, CVLT would sometimes carry through on their threats.”

From at least 2019 to 2022, Rane, Walker, Merritt and Borge were members of CVLT, and Rane, Walker, and Merritt acted as leaders and administrators in the CVLT enterprise, hosting and running CVLT online servers and controlling membership for the group, the indictment alleges. They went by online handles such as “evil,” “sociopatch,” and “tradlordd,” according to the indictment.

According to prosecutors, there may be other unnamed suspects involved with the CVLT enterprise. Authorities identified victims around the world including in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties.

If convicted, the men would face a 20-years to life in prison.

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For almost 20 years, Jeffries, his partner Matthew Smith and their employee James Jacobson used Jeffries’ status, wealth and a web of household staffers to fulfill the couple’s sexual desires and keep it all secret, according to a federal indictment.

“Sexually exploiting vulnerable human beings is a crime. And doing so by dangling dreams of a future in fashion or modeling … is no different,” Brooklyn-based U.S. attorney Breon Peace said at a news conference. He called the case a warning “to anyone who thinks they can exploit and coerce others by using the so-called casting couch system.”

The charges echo sexual misconduct accusations made in a civil case and the media in recent years. Lawyers representing Jeffries in a federal sex trafficking lawsuit have said he “vehemently denies” those allegations.

Jeffries wore a broad smile but didn’t comment Tuesday as he left a federal courthouse in West Palm Beach, Fla., after being released on a $10 million bond. His attorney, Brian Bieber, also didn’t comment.

Smith, a dual U.S.- British citizen, was ordered detained after prosecutors raised concerns that he might flee the country.

His lawyers, Joseph Nascimento and David Raben, and Bieber said by email they would respond to the allegations in court “when appropriate.”

Jacobson didn’t address the charges during his court appearance in St. Paul, Minnesota, other than to say, “I understand what they claim,” and didn’t comment as he left the courthouse on $500,000 bond.

Jacobson has said previously that he didn’t engage in or know about any coercive, deceptive or forceful behavior. Messages seeking comment were sent to his attorney.

The three defendants are charged with sex trafficking and interstate prostitution involving 15 unnamed accusers.

The case is the latest sex crime prosecution of a prominent and wealthy man — from Sean “Diddy” Combs to Harvey Weinstein — accused of abusing his position as a star or possible star-maker, though the status of the cases and important aspects of the allegations vary. An early accuser of the late Jeffrey Epstein said he groped her during a 1997 meeting arranged as a modeling interview for the Victoria’s Secret catalog.

According to the indictment, Jacobson, Jeffries and Smith paid for dozens of men to travel to engage in sex with them and other men in New York and at hotels in England, France, Italy, Morocco and St. Barts between 2008 and 2015. The sometimes graphic indictment describes sexual bacchanals in which the recruited men were given drugs, lubricant, condoms, costumes, sex toys and, sometimes, erection-inducing penile injections that caused painful, hourslong reactions.

The men weren’t told ahead of time what sexual practices they’d be expected to engage in — indeed, some itineraries simply resembled those for models’ photo shoots — and they were required to sign non-disclosure agreements, the indictment said.

The defendants duped the men — at least one as young as 19, and some of them former Abercrombie store workers — into thinking they’d get Abercrombie modeling gigs, or that refusing to engage in the sexual encounters could harm their prospects, prosecutors said in court documents.

They said the men typically underwent “tryouts” by having sex first with Jacobson, who acted as a recruiter for his bosses.

Peace said at the news conference that prosecutors have “a lot of evidence,” including travel records, financial documents and testimony from accusers and witnesses.

Jeffries left Abercrombie & Fitch in 2014. The New Albany, Ohio-based company, which also encompasses Hollister, declined to comment on his arrest.

Prosecutors don’t allege that the company’s resources or property were used in the alleged sex scheme.

Abercrombie last year said it had hired an outside law firm to conduct an independent investigation after the BBC reported on similar allegations from a dozen men.

Founded as a hunting and outdoors goods store in 1892, Abercrombie & Fitch was a retail also-ran when Jeffries arrived a century later.

He was credited with transforming it into a darling of turn-of-the-millennium teen mall culture, known for its nouveau-preppy aesthetic and sexy marketing that featured shirtless, muscular male models. Jeffries talked openly about how the company went after attractive kids who could fit into its clothes.

Those remarks alienated customers who didn’t fit — literally or otherwise — the brand’s image, and the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession prompted some teens to look to less expensive “fast fashion” chains. By the time Jeffries left, the company’s sales were slumping.

A few months after his departure, the retailer announced it would stop using “sexualized” photos in marketing materials in its shops and calling store staffers “models.” The company told regional managers it wouldn’t “tolerate discrimination based on body type or physical attractiveness.”

Abercrombie has rebounded in recent years.

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Christopher Patrick Laney, 34, of Lancaster, California, was arrested on several charges, including distribution of fentanyl resulting in death, four counts of knowingly and willfully operating an unregistered aircraft in furtherance of a felony narcotics crime, and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and fentanyl, Martin Estrada, US attorney for the central district of California, said in a statement.

A spokesperson for Estrada did not immediately respond to an email seeking information about an attorney representing Laney.

Between December 2022 and January 2023, Laney allegedly used an unregistered drone to deliver fentanyl and other narcotics from his home to a nearby church parking lot, where another person received the drugs and gave them to customers, including a woman who died of a fatal overdose in January 2023, federal prosecutors said.

Video captured by the drone showed Laney used it at least three other times to distribute drugs, they said.

A grand jury indictment also accuses Laney of having an AR-15 and two 9mm semiautomatic pistols at his home, federal prosecutors said. The firearms, referred to as “ghost guns” by law enforcement officials, lacked serial numbers, which makes them difficult to trace.

If convicted of all charges, Laney would face 25 years to life in prison.

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He was charged on May 22 with one count of stalking, seven counts of transmitting threats in interstate commerce, seven counts of engaging in hoaxes, and three counts of transmitting threats or false information regarding fire and explosives.

He was arrested May 21 and his arraignment was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon in United States District Court in Riverside.

“Swatting” refers to falsely reporting in the name of another person that an emergency is in progress or about to occur, with the intent to result in emergency services or law enforcement responding to that other person’s location or investigating them.

According to the indictment that a federal grand jury returned on May 16 and unsealed May 22, Rodriguez in January and February 2023 used a Voice over Internal Protocol (VoIP) service to place more than a dozen calls impersonating the victim.

Initially, Rodriguez called a suicide prevention center and a veterans crisis hotline, claimed to be the victim, and said that he was contemplating committing suicide or killing others.

Rodriguez allegedly then called school staff at seven different schools — in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, as well as Sandy Hook Elementary School — and threatened to commit either a mass shooting or bombing at the schools. Finally, Rodriguez allegedly called Nashville International Airport in Tennessee, said he had planted a bomb on a plane and in the airport, and said, “this is for ISIS,” and “one hour, boom.”

Law enforcement responded to these phone calls and determined they were fake.

United States Attorney Martin Estrada said the crimes alleged against Rodriguez “are highly troubling.”

“The indictment alleges that the defendant placed calls to schools, airports, and other locations that were designed to cause maximum fear and trigger an emergency response. ‘Swatting’ is a serious crime that can cause great trauma and risk loss of life, so it is important that we hold wrongdoers accountable.”

Krysti Hawkins, the acting assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, said Rodriguez “is alleged to have conducted swatting attacks, to include the callous targeting of an open wound at Sandy Hook, without regard for the potential consequences of this insidious type of hoax. “Perpetrators of swatting hoaxes should understand that the FBI and our local partners take these threats seriously and that the penalties — if convicted — are considerable.”

An indictment is merely an allegation, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

If convicted of the charges, Rodriguez would face a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison on the stalking count, five years on each of the threats counts, five years on each of the hoax counts, and 10 years on each of the counts relating to fire and explosives.

The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating this matter. Riverside Police Department, Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, Newtown Police Department, and Nashville Airport Authority provided substantial assistance.

Assistant United States Attorney Jenna W. Long of the Terrorism and Export Crimes Section is prosecuting this case.

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