Local men accussed in white supremacy plot after FBI investigation

Two local men waived their preliminary hearings in federal court and a judge ordered they remain held Thursday, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports, after the men were arrested on accusations of being white supremacists plotting to attack black churches and synagogues.

Robert Curtis Doyle and Ronald Beasley Chaney III were arrested Sunday as part of an undercover FBI operation, according to court documents obtained by The Collegian, where three FBI agents posed as illegal gun dealers selling weapons and explosives to the two Virginia men.

Their cases will now be referred to a U.S. District Court grand jury for indictment Dec. 1., according to the Times-Dispatch.

The men had plans to rob businessmen, generate a stockpile of weapons, and bomb and shoot members of black churches and synagogues, according to court documents.

In September, the FBI learned that Doyle was going to hold a meeting at his Chesterfield County home with other people "to discuss acting out in furtherance of their extremist beliefs by shooting or bombing the occupants of black churches and Jewish synagogues, conducting acts of violence against persons of the Jewish faith and doing harm to a gun store owner in the state of Oklahoma," according to court papers.

Charles Daniel Halderman was also arrested on accusations that he was going to help Doyle and Chaney in robbing and killing a silver-jewelry dealer, according to CNN. Halderman is scheduled to appear before a U.S. District Court at 10:30 a.m. Friday.

Also facing charges are Ronald Beasley Chaney Jr., Chaney III’s father, and Terry Gunn Chaney, believed to be Ronald Chaney Jr.'s wife, according to the Times-Dispatch. The two, whose preliminary hearings are scheduled later this month and January, face firearms and drug charges.

Contact editor-in-chief Jack Nicholson at jack.nicholson@richmond.edu