A federal grand jury sitting in Columbus, Ohio, on July 9, 2026, indicted eight men on charges stemming from an alleged plot to attack the June 14 UFC Freedom 250 event on the White House South Lawn using explosive-laden drones, followed by small-arms fire aimed at spectators fleeing the scene. The indictment, unsealed by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Ohio, caps a month-long investigation that began with a tip reported to the FBI on June 10, four days before the event took place.

The UFC Freedom 250 card was staged at the White House during the weekend of President Trump's 80th birthday. Prosecutors allege the group intended to fly explosive-rigged drones into the crowd and then have a designated shooter fire on attendees as they scattered — a hybrid drone-and-ground attack designed to maximize casualties among a high-profile audience.

Who Was Charged

The eight defendants named in the indictment, along with their alleged aliases, ages and hometowns, are:

  • Abraham H. Alvarez ("Shepherd"), 31, of Omaha, Nebraska
  • Daniel K. Eskridge ("Fulcrum"), 32, of Hamilton, Missouri
  • William L.S. Falkner ("Pepsi"), 21, of Belfair, Washington
  • Tycen C. Proper ("Prox"), 19, of Danville, Ohio
  • Jordan W. Rincker, 28, of St. Joseph, Missouri
  • Bryan O. Roa ("Noble"), 25, of Calimesa, California
  • Chandler D. Scaggs ("Viper of the S.O.G."), 21, of Chapmanville, West Virginia
  • Michael A. Thomas ("Whiskey Six"), 32, of Pinon Hills, California

Each man faces two federal counts: conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years, and conspiracy to commit murder on federal territory or against federal officials, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. The case was announced jointly by U.S. Attorney Dominick S. Gerace II and FBI Cincinnati Special Agent in Charge Jason Cromartie.

How the Plot Allegedly Came Together

According to prosecutors, the group began amassing money, firearms, explosives, drones and body armor as early as May 2026. Members coordinated primarily through encrypted and semi-encrypted channels — Signal and SimpleX — while also communicating over Discord, TikTok and Instagram, a mix of platforms that spans both hardened messaging apps favored for operational security and mainstream social media typically used for recruitment or radicalization content.

Court documents and reporting describe the plan in two phases: first, flying explosive-laden drones into the ticketed UFC event at the White House; second, using a designated sniper — allegedly Scaggs — to shoot spectators as they fled the initial attack. Reported target lists for the operation allegedly included President Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Elon Musk, all of whom were tied to the high-security, high-visibility nature of the event.

Timeline of Arrests

The FBI says it first learned of the threat on June 10, giving investigators only four days to assess and disrupt the plot before the event proceeded as scheduled on June 14. Five of the eight defendants were arrested that same weekend, in Missouri, Nebraska and California. Two additional defendants were charged roughly a week later, in Washington state and Missouri. The eighth and final defendant, Chandler Scaggs, was taken into custody in West Virginia during the week of July 9, the same week the full eight-defendant indictment was unsealed.

That the UFC event went forward on June 14 despite the FBI's June 10 tip indicates law enforcement judged it could monitor and interdict the alleged plotters without canceling a high-profile presidential event, rather than that the threat was assessed as non-credible — a judgment reinforced by the scale of the material-support and murder-conspiracy charges ultimately brought.

Why It Matters

The case is one of the most serious domestic drone-attack plots targeting a sitting president and other heads of state to reach a federal indictment, and it lands squarely on a problem the counter-UAS community has been warning about for years: small, commercially derived drones are cheap, hard to detect in cluttered urban and suburban airspace, and increasingly easy to rig with improvised explosives. A plot that pairs weaponized drones with coordinated ground shooters represents exactly the "swarm plus follow-on" scenario that counter-drone planners for major outdoor events — sports venues, political rallies, state visits — have cited as their hardest problem to defend against, because it forces security teams to simultaneously manage airspace and crowd-control threats in real time.

The alleged target list, spanning a sitting U.S. president, vice president, a foreign head of government and a private citizen, also underscores how high-security events that mix government protectees with private VIPs create complex, overlapping security perimeters. And the group's use of encrypted platforms like Signal and SimpleX alongside open platforms like TikTok, Discord and Instagram illustrates the recruitment-to-operational pipeline investigators increasingly have to track: public platforms for outreach and radicalization, encrypted channels for planning. For the drone industry and regulators, the case is likely to add momentum to counter-UAS legislation and detection deployments around future outdoor events at the White House and other protected sites.

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