Chicago man charged with obstruction of justice in connection to White House UFC attack plot

A 20-year-old Chicago antheral has been arrested successful transportation with a thwarted convulsive crippled targeting a caller Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) lawsuit astatine the White House.

Alexander Iniguez Mercado was indicted Thursday successful national tribunal for allegedly serving arsenic an head and subordinate of Signal messaging groups utilized to program a convulsive onslaught connected the June 14 event, Fox News has learned.

He is 1 of 8 suspects from crossed aggregate states who person been charged successful transportation with the conspiracy.

According to the indictment, the FBI contacted Mercado by telephone conscionable 1 time earlier the White House lawsuit to sermon online threats. 

When a peculiar cause asked if Mercado was readying to question to Washington, D.C., to enactment successful the attack, helium allegedly denied the plans and refused to conscionable with instrumentality enforcement. 

Immediately aft the call, Mercado allegedly uninstalled the Signal app from his phone, rendering the captious connection information unavailable to investigators.

Because of the alleged effort to destruct evidence, Mercado has besides been charged with obstruction of justice, according to the DOJ.

Mercado was taken into custody Thursday and is scheduled to marque his archetypal quality successful national tribunal successful Chicago contiguous astatine 3 p.m. earlier U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel A. Fuentes. 

If convicted, helium faces a maximum punishment of 20 years successful national prison.

This is simply a processing story. Please cheque backmost for updates.