Prosecutors charged Justin Mohn – the Bucks County man who allegedly decapitated his father last month and displayed his head in a YouTube video – with terrorism and a series of other crimes Thursday.
Mohn, 32, in the graphic 14-minute clip, called for the murder of federal employees; gave out the address of a U.S. District Court judge; and declared himself the commander of “America’s national network of militias.”
When he was apprehended hours after the Jan. 30 killing, at a U.S. National Guard Training Center in central Pennsylvania, officers discovered a handgun and a USB drive, detectives said.
That drive contained photographs of federal buildings along with what appeared to be instructions for making improvised explosive devices, according to a criminal complaint filed this week by the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office and Middletown Township Police Department.
Authorities added a dozen new charges to Mohn’s case Thursday, including three counts of terrorism, robbery, theft and firearm violations. He had initially been charged with murder, abuse of a corpse and possession of an instrument of crime.
Mohn legally purchased the gun believed to have been used in the shooting a day before the murder at a Croydon shop, according to the Bucks County DA’s Office. However, he did not have a permit to carry it, prosecutors said in an affidavit of probable cause.
The Bucks County Public Defender’s Office, which is representing Mohn, declined to comment on the case.
Mohn is accused of killing 68-year-old Michael Mohn, who spent more than two decades as an engineer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“This is the head of Mike Mohn, a federal employee of over 20 years and my father,” Justin Mohn said in the video while holding a head wrapped in plastic. “He is now in hell for eternity as a traitor to his country.”
Mohn, police said, filmed himself after shooting his father in the head and using a machete and kitchen knife to decapitate him. His mother, Diane Mohn, discovered the scene when she returned after several hours out of the house, according to authorities.
Prosecutors said Justin Mohn left in his father’s car and headed to Fort Indiantown Gap, where his goal was to “to mobilize the Pennsylvania National Guard to raise arms against the federal government,” Bucks County DA Jennifer Schorn said at a Feb. 2 news conference.
Authorities tracked his location through cellphone data, and he was arrested after hopping a barbed-wire fence at the base, officials said.
The FBI, in a statement, said that it had received four tips between 2018 and 2023 about Mohn related to social media posts. Agents found “no evidence of any ongoing illegal activities or indications of an imminent threat,” the bureau said.
Mohn has been held without bail at Bucks County Correctional Facility since his arrest. A preliminary hearing in his case is scheduled for April 2.
