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U.S. DISTRICT COURT, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS—The United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, Stephen R. Wigginton, announced that Ray Allen Flener, 26, of Sesser, Illinois, was sentenced on September 10, 2014, on federal charges that he made false statements and conveyed a false threat to federal agents. The United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois sentenced Flener to 48 months in federal prison, to be followed by two years of supervised release, payment of a special assessment of $200.
At the change of plea hearing in April of 2014, Flener admitted that on November 2, 2012, as a detainee at the Franklin County Jail in Benton, he told a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that he had knowledge of a plan by a group called “the New World Order” to disrupt Election Day on November 6, 2012, by using weapons and explosives. Specifically, Flener told and showed the FBI agent the area in which the weapons and explosives allegedly had been stored in August of 2012. Flener’s statements were false because, as Flener knew, he had no such knowledge of weapons and explosives having been stored at that location.
Flener also admitted that on November 1, 2012, he intentionally conveyed false and misleading information, when Flener told law enforcement officers from the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI that he had personal knowledge of a plan by a group called “the New World Order” to disrupt Election Day, November 6, 2012, by using weapons and explosives.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Illinois State Police, the Illinois Department of Corrections, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Sheriff’s Offices of Franklin County, Williamson County, Saline County and Jackson County, and the Police Departments of Marion, West Frankfort and Johnston City. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Liam Coonan.