A neo-Nazi who organized an attempt to intimidate journalists was sentenced to three years in prison.

SEATTLE (AP) - After apologizing for his actions and saying he had changed, the organizer of a neo-Nazi campaign threatening Jewish journalists and activists in three states was sentenced to three years in prison on Tuesday.

Cameron Shea was one of four members of the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen division accused last year of cyber-harassment and sending posters decorated with swastikas to journalists and an Anti-Defamation League employee saying : “The local Nazis came to you. Your actions have consequences ”and“ We are watching ”.

The prosecutor's office noted in the sentencing memorandum that the accused wanted victims to feel insecure in their own homes.

Shi, 25, pleaded guilty to two of five counts in April in Seattle U.S. District Court: conspiracy charges with a maximum sentence of five years in prison and interference in state-protected activities with a maximum sentence ... ten years in prison. The prosecution requested a sentence of at least four years.

"I cannot express in words the shame I feel about this fear and agony I have caused," Shea wrote in a letter to Judge John C. Cougenour.

Shih wrote that he was homeless, struggling with an addiction, and facing the death of a friend when he began researching neo-Nazism. He said he befriended detainees of other races during his detention and now understands that journalists play a vital role in holding institutions and individuals accountable.

“The only reason I didn't like the media was because I was involved in things that I didn't want to be known to the public, because on some level I knew what I was doing was wrong, ”he wrote.

During a group conversation in November 2019, Shih made it clear that the purpose of the scheme was to intimidate reporters and others through unfavorable media coverage of Atomwaffen.

Shi addressed the threatening placards to two people associated with the Anti-Defamation League, an anti-Semitic organization, and a reporter covering Atomwaffen on January 1. February 25, 2020. The leaflets were also distributed or attempted to be delivered to parts of Arizona and Florida.

Caleb Cole, another conspiracy suspect, has pleaded not guilty and is due to stand trial in September. Cole's firearms were seized by Seattle Police in 2019 under an "exceptional hazard protection order," implying he was preparing for racial conflict.

Since the group's formation in 2016, more than a dozen people associated with Atomwaffen, or a subsidiary called the Feuerkrieg Division, have been charged with crimes in federal court.

Atomwaffen has been linked to a number of murders, including the shooting of two men in a Tampa apartment in May 2017 and a student at the University of Pennsylvania in California in January 2018.

After pleading guilty, two other members of the pilot conspiracy were convicted: Johnny Roman Garza, 21, of Queen Creek, Ariz., Who hung one of the posters on a Jewish journalist's bedroom window, and Taylor Parker, 21. -Depepp from Spring Hill. , Florida, who tried to deliver a flyer, but delivered it to the wrong address.