Gerald Leonard Drake planted a pipe bomb and sent threatening letters, prosecutors said. (Mugshot: Frederick County Sheriff’s Office)
After getting kicked out of his Civil War reenactment unit, a man terrorized a related organization by planting a pipe bomb and writing anonymous letters in which he pretended to be “antifa.” Gerald Leonard Drake, 64, was sentenced on Thursday to nine years in federal prison for unregistered explosive device and stalking.
In court documents and press statements, prosecutors in the Western District of Virginia said Drake belonged to a reenactment unit commemorating the 1864 Battle of Cedar Creek. He got kicked out in 2014 over an “internal conflict.”
Though he never returned as a reenactor, he joined the related Cedar Creek Battlefield Foundation as a volunteer in 2017 and 2018. Taking advantage of the tragic and recent riots at the far-right, white supremacist Unite the Right event in Charlottesville, Virginia, Drake wrote threatening letters in the guise of someone who was “antifa.” The author demanded that they cancel the upcoming Cedar Creek reenactment.
In a typewritten letter postmarked Sept. 21, 2017, the author said the event “clearly celebrates the war to keep African-Americans in chains,” and that if they did not cancel it, Antifa would inflict trouble on the battlefield that would make the Charlottesville riots look like “a Sunday picnic.”
Then on Oct. 14, 2017, when the CCBF hosted a reenactment, an unexploded pipe bomb was found in one of the merchant tents.
The explosive contained items including metal nuts, a mercury switch, a battery, ball bearings, black and red wires, and powder, prosecutors said.
This resulted in the event having to be canceled and visitors evacuating.
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“According to FBI explosives experts, several of the bomb’s contents, such as black powder, smokeless powder, and Pryodex, are explosives in and of themselves that are sensitive to friction, heat, impact, and sparks, and therefore are very dangerous to handle,” authorities wrote. “When confined in a container, such as a pipe with end caps used in this case, these ingredients combine to create an exceptionally destructive device.”
Even after that, Drake kept writing threatening, vulgar letters in which he, pretending to be antifa, threatened violence and sexual assault against people.
- “Many of us have dogs, so will bring dog feces to throw on people!” said the letter postmarked Sept. 21, 2017.
- In a letter postmarked June 29, 2018, Drake wrote, “I like the idea of burning your mother alive in a car bomb.”
- In one letter postmarked, Oct. 5, 2018, Drake threatened a person’s daughters, writing, “We have a convicted rapist that would love to introduce them to his penis.”
Other such threats followed. Now Drake is going to spend almost a full decade behind bars.
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“Gerald Drake’s attempts at sowing hatred and terror have been answered with 108 months in federal prison,” United States Attorney Christopher R. Kavanaugh said Thursday. “Hate has no place in our community, and we are truly grateful for the steadfast efforts of our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners who unmasked the once-hidden identity of this defendant and ended his campaign of fear-mongering and intimidation.”
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