A nefarious plot to target a Planned Parenthood clinic with a homegrown explosive has culminated in a stiff federal prison sentence for a Florida man, court records show. Xavier Batten, 21, hailing from Brooksville, was slapped with a 42-month prison sentence for aiding Orange County assailants in the March 2022 firebombing, the U.S. Attorney’s Office conferred on Monday.
In a feat of misguided vigilantism, Batten collaborated with former Marine Chance Brannon to wreak havoc on a reproductive health facility, only to be hit with a judicial reckoning that includes a $1,000 restitution demand and a post-incarceration period of supervised release featuring suspicion-less searches, United States District Judge Cormac J. Carney decreed; Batten, who confessed to the possession of an unregistered destructive device along with harming the clinic, has been in custody for close to a year, as reported by the U.S. Attorney's Office, Central District of California.
Judge Carney didn't mince words, calling out Batten's crime as "cowardly" and a showing of "no empathy for women and their rights," as stated by the U.S. Attorney's Office, Central District of California, Batten, who was absent during the explosive crafting, had advised Brannon on building a Molotov cocktail, prosecutors laid out in court documents. Following the successful firebombing that led to the temporary closure of the clinic, Batten received a text from Brannon, to which he replied with congratulations.
The broader conspiracy enveloped not just the attack on Planned Parenthood but also other worrying plots – Brannon's subsequent nine-year sentence was for his broader cache of criminal intentions, including planned strikes on the power grid, Dodger Stadium during a pride event, and home invasions targeting Jewish households, Court filings reveal that Brannon pled guilty to a smorgasbord of charges, including conspiracy, malicious destruction of property by fire and explosives, and other counts that shed a grim light on the trio's destructive designs, according to the Justice Department's communication.
The third accomplice, Tibet Ergul, threw in his hand with a guilty plea for conspiracy to damage an energy facility and a reproductive health services facility, with his sentencing still pending. The combined efforts of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and local fire and police departments were instrumental in bringing the culprits to book. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Kathrynne N. Seiden of the Terrorism and Export Crimes Section, with assistance from Trial Attorney Jacob Warren from the Justice Department’s National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section, the press release concluded.
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