A federal jury in Seattle on Wednesday convicted a leader of a neo-Nazi campaign to threaten journalists and Jewish activists in three states.

The jury deliberated for about 90 minutes Wednesday following a two-day trial before convicting 25-year-old Kaleb Cole of five felony charges, including conspiracy, mailing threatening communications and interfering with a federally protected activity. He could face a decade in prison when Judge John C. Coughenour sentences him in January.

Cole, most recently of Montgomery, Texas, was a leader of a hate group called Atomwaffen Division. He and four others were charged last year with having cyberstalked and sent Swastika-laden posters to journalists and employees of the Anti-Defamation League in Washington state, Arizona and Florida, telling them, �You have been visited by your local Nazis,� �Your Actions have Consequences,� and �We are Watching.�

The posters included images such as a hooded figure preparing to throw a Molotov cocktail at a house, and the words �Death to Pigs� � the same message followers of Charles Manson scrawled in victims� blood during a home invasion murder.

Cole has been on law enforcement�s radar since at least 2018, when he was stopped at U.S. Customs upon returning from a trip to Europe. Authorities searched his cell phone and found photos of him at various sites throughout Europe, displaying a white supremacist flag and performing the Nazi salute.

In 2019, Seattle police obtained an �extreme risk protection order� against him, seizing nine guns from his home. They said Cole had �gone from espousing hate to now taking active steps or preparation for an impending �race war.��

Those steps including organizing paramilitary-style �hate camps� in Nevada and Washington, investigators said.

During the trial, victims testified about the impact of receiving the posters, the U.S. attorney�s office said in a news release. Some temporarily left their homes and installed security systems; one bought a gun and took a firearms safety class; and another left her job as a journalist.

In his closing argument, assistant U.S. attorney Thomas Woods told the jury Cole �was not simply sending a message of hate, he was sending a statement of terror.�

Cole did not call any witnesses or testify on his own behalf. His attorney, Chris Black, argued that the posters did not constitute threats.

�What we have here is a group of disillusioned young men who want to believe that they are engaged in some sort of propaganda war with journalists and organizations like the Anti-Defamation League,� Black said. �But they never engaged in violence. They never planned violence. And most importantly, they never intended to communicate an actual threat to commit violence.�

His three co-defendants pleaded guilty and have already been sentenced, with the other leader of the conspiracy, Cameron Shea, receiving a three-year term after apologizing and saying, �I cannot put into words the guilt that I feel about this fear and pain that I caused.�

Johnny Roman Garza, of Queen Creek, Arizona, was sentenced to 16 months for affixing one of the posters on the bedroom window of a Jewish journalist.

Taylor Parker-Dipeppe, of Spring Hill, Florida, received no prison time for attempting to deliver a flier but leaving it at the wrong address. Parker-Dipeppe was severely abused by his father and stepfather and hid his transgender identity from his co-conspirators � the judge found that he had suffered enough.

(AP)