Court Record
Nolan Brewer, 21, is an Indiana man who was recently convicted to 3 years in prison for defacing a synagogue with Nazi symbolism. Nolan plead guilty last week to conspiring to violate the civil rights of Congregation Shaarey Tefilla. Nolan and his 17-year-old wife, Kiyomi Brewer, drove 50 miles to the synagogue then painted Nazi flags and iron crosses on a dumpster and lit a fire on the ground. According to the FBI, they had planned to break into the church and detonate Drano bombs and napalm but got scared and didn’t go through with it.
What first appeared to be an immature, senseless act of vandalism turned out to be much more sinister. Nolan and Kiyomi were white supremacists that were planning future attacks and coordinating with other domestic terrorists. They spent hours reading content from Breitbart, Nazi website Stormfront, and chatting on Discord with members including “Asbestos Peter” who eventually convinced them to vandalize the synagogue.
In an interview with the FBI, Nolan said he committed the acts to get “news headlines” and “spark more radicalism,” by showing other extremists “people are actually doing things” so “maybe we can have a voice.” Brewer’s attorneys sought a lower sentence, saying that Nolan had no previous criminal record and was heavily influenced by his fiancee. While prosecutors acknowledged that he was heavily influenced by his fiancee and white supremacists, his actions were his responsibility.
He was sentenced to 3 years in Federal prison, fined $1,000 and ordered to repay the synagogue $700 for the damage he caused.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Nolan Bragged to His Co-Workers About His Crimes
Court Documents
In the months leading up to the attack, co-workers and supervisors from Brewer’s two jobs testified that Brewer talked about Nazism and white supremacy at work, even attempting to recruit several of his co-workers to the “movement”. Witnesses claim he wore a swastika necklace and made racist and anti-Semitic remarks on a daily basis.
“What is relevant is Brewer’s receptiveness to the Nazi ideology, the thinking of Adolf Hitler, and the racism and anti-Semitism that accompanies it,” prosecutors said. “And the evidence shows that Brewer was, for months, not only receptive but trying to spread the ideology to others.”
When Nolan vandalized the synagogue, he allegedly came into work the next day in an uncharacteristically good mood. He openly bragged about his crimes and even showed co-workers photos of the burning napalm and Nazi flags from the night the vandalism occured. Several text messages from his cell phone show he was pleased with the news coverage his crimes were getting. He also bragged to an FBI informant that Mike Pence had tweeted about his vandalism.
2. Nolan’s Girlfriend Introduced Him to the Nazi Ideology
Nolan’s wife, Kiyomi Brewer, was a voracious reader of Nazi and white supremacist propaganda. After moving in with Nolan and his parents, she would spend hours at home reading pseudo-academic propaganda that supported her white supremacist beliefs and chatting with other white supremacists on Discord. She would espouse these beliefs to Nolan every morning and encourage him to read the same articles.
According to Kiyomi, she began with Fox News and Breitbart articles then moved into more hateful sites such as Stormfront. This propaganda eventually led to Nolan and Kiyomi getting involved with Identity Evropa and taking action.
Kiyomi had a rough upbringing. Her great grandfather took custody of her when she was 3 because her mother and grandmother were deemed “unfit” to raise her. Despite escaping her household, she was still raised in an unhealthy environment and taught to view other races as inferior.
According to court documents, Kiyomi was tried as an adult and pleaded guilty to arson. She received probation but no jail time.
3. He Joined Identity Evropa, the Same Group Who Participated in the Charlottesville Protest in 2017
Nolan met several members of Identity Evropa through contacts Kiyomi met on chat app Discord. Identity Evropa is the same group that participated in the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia which culminated in white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. killing Heather Heyer with his car and injuring 40 other people. Brewer told the FBI that he and Kiyomi had dinner with a “lovely couple” and several other members from the group.
Nolan was close with several of the members who reinforced his newly found beliefs but they were not involved in the synagogue vandalism.
4. Nolan and His Wife Kiyomi Planned to Burn the Synagogue Down
The couple had initially planned to break into the synagogue and detonate “drano bombs” to burn the building down. Wal-mart surveillance cameras captured the couple buying red and black spray paint, Gatorade bottles, aluminum foil, Drano cleaner, rubber gloves, Styrofoam plates, and bandanas. Mixing Drano and aluminum foil in a Gatorade bottle causes the release of a gas which will build up until causing a small explosion. They were going to combine this with “homemade napalm”, a mixture of gasoline and styrofoam, to create a large fire.
The couple got scared during the crime and decided not to go through with it.
5. Nolan Brewer’s Childhood Friend Inadvertently Taught Him How to Make Napalm
According to court documents, Nolan learned how to make homemade napalm from backyard parties he would attend with his childhood friend, Alex Hitchcock. During the parties, the friends would play video games, hang out, and mess around experimenting with fire and homemade napalm in the backyard. These parties occurred for over a year before the synagogue incident.
Alex wasn’t aware of Nolan’s white supremacist activities or his plans to attack the synagogue and thought the two were just “messing around”. Alex and Kiyomi hung out with Nolan on the night of the synagogue attack. After investigating, the FBI verified that Alex was not involved in any way.