A 61-year-old San Diego County man accused of mailing a death threat to a Temecula mosque and stockpiling illegal assault weapons at his rural home pleaded not guilty this week to felony and misdemeanor charges. Louis George White Jr. is being held in lieu of $70,000 bail at the Byrd Detention Center after his arraignment before Superior Court Judge Theresa Canepa.
According to MyNewsLA.com, the case began after staff at the Islamic Center of Temecula Valley on Nicolas Road notified the Riverside County Sheriff's Department after receiving a letter that read, in part, “I cannot wait for the day to kill every one of you. It cannot come soon enough! (Expletive) you all!” White later admitted, per an affidavit, that he wrote the letter while sitting in his kitchen, and investigators say his fingerprints were found on it, according to a bail declaration cited in the same report.
Court papers reviewed by the outlet state that White also mailed the letter from a U.S. Postal Service box at the intersection of Highways 79 and 371, and that threats against the Muslim community were later located on his social media accounts. White reportedly told investigators that Muslims are evil, according to a declaration described in the report, and he said the mosque was on his way to Target and Walmart outlets in Temecula, though he had also driven by the Islamic Center a few times, per the same account.
Search Turns Up Assault Weapons and Thousands of Rounds
The Riverside County Sheriff's Office confirmed in an August 31 news release that Southwest Station deputies were first dispatched on August 26 to the 31000 block of Nicolas Road in Temecula regarding criminal threats. Sheriff's detectives obtained and served a search warrant at White's property in the 35000 block of Peralta Drive near Highway 78 in Warner Springs, according to the sheriff's statement.
Deputies seized an assault weapon fitted with a threaded barrel for a flash suppressor and a detachable magazine, along with two short-barreled rifles that are illegal to own in California and two semiautomatic assault weapons with pistol grips and detachable magazines, per the sheriff's statement. They also recovered eleven other firearms and at least 3,000 rounds of miscellaneous ammunition. White's girlfriend disclaimed ownership of the two semiautomatic assault weapons, according to court records cited by the outlet, and White himself reportedly told deputies, “I can't do anything now; you took my guns.” The sheriff's Fugitive Warrant Enforcement Team arrested White on August 29, the release states.
Charges Span Hate Crime and Weapons Statutes
White faces one count of deprivation of civil rights, one count of publishing threats against an educational or religious institution, and four counts of illegal possession of assault weapons, along with felony criminal threats charges. The deprivation of civil rights count is among the charges White faces.
White faces criminal threats charges and illegal weapons counts. White has prior convictions in another jurisdiction, though the article does not specify what they involve. He is scheduled for a felony settlement conference on October 16 at the Southwest Justice Center in Murrieta.
A Mosque With a History of Being Targeted
The Islamic Center of Temecula Valley has faced hostility before. The congregation, which grew from seven families praying in private homes to hundreds of worshippers, according to LAist, had a proposed project scheduled to go before the Temecula planning commission in November 2010 amid protests where demonstrators shouted slogans and brought dogs outside Friday prayer services, as documented by the Los Angeles Times at the time. Those demonstrations drew national attention and prompted a counter-demonstration by local interfaith leaders standing in solidarity with the mosque's congregation. City of Temecula records show that the Islamic Center of Temecula Valley filed a planning application to build a worship and community center on Nicolas Road. City of Temecula planning records describe a two-phase development plan and conditional use permit for a 24,943 square foot structure on 4.32 acres within a VL zone.
In 2023, a Corona man was arrested for burglarizing the same mosque after investigators identified him using the center's own security footage, according to the Sierra Sun Times. That suspect had also targeted another Islamic center in Riverside.
Part of a Broader Pattern, Advocates Say
The Temecula case lands amid what civil rights groups describe as a sharp statewide and national rise in threats against Muslim institutions. CAIR-CA offices received 119 hate-crime and hate-incident reports in 2025. Nationally, the organization documented 17 incidents targeting Islamic places of worship between May and July 2026 alone, a 183 percent increase over the same period the year before, including threats, arson, and other acts of intimidation. According to the California Department of Justice, reported hate crime events involving a racial bias overall increased 6.2% from 1,011 in 2024 to 1,074 in 2025.
