The leader of the Atlanta-based extremist group the Black Hammer Party is scheduled to stand trial next year on charges of collaborating with an unregistered Kremlin agent to sow discord in the United States, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
Attorneys in the federal case against Augustus Claudius Romain Jr., the 36-year-old leader of the radical Black Hammer Party, met with U.S. Magistrate Judge Sean Flynn in a teleconference out of Tampa, Fla., and set a tentative trial date for the February 2024 term.
In the meantime, Romain, who goes by the alias Gazi Kodzo and uses they/them pronouns, has asked the court for a medical evaluation.
“Defendant self-reported being proscribed (sic) psychotropic medication for a mental health condition,” Flynn wrote in an order filed earlier this month in the Middle District of Florida. “In addition, Defendant self-reported to being in the process of transitioning genders.”
Flynn ordered that Romain, who is being held without bond, be given “any treatment deemed appropriate.”
The twist is just the latest in the bizarre and dangerous tale of Romain and his Black Hammer Party. Federal prosecutors allege Romain took money and instructions from Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, a Russian national with ties to the Kremlin, to stage pro-Russian demonstrations in Atlanta and San Francisco in the months following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Credit: YouTube
Credit: YouTube
An indictment filed in federal court claims that Ionov worked with the Black Hammer Party to “cause dissention in the United States and ... further Russian interests.” The indictment also charges members of the Florida-based African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement with conspiring with Ionov to influence a municipal election in St. Petersburg, Fla. Ionov and two other Russians, Federal Security Service officers Aleksey Borisovich Sukhodolov and Yegor Sergeyevich Popov, are indicted as part of the alleged conspiracy, although none of the Russian nationals have been arrested.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel J. Marcet said Thursday it was unlikely the Russians would be arrested “absent regime change” in their native country.
Romain faces a possible five-year prison sentence if convicted. But potentially longer sentences await for Romain and other members of his group in Fayette County.
Romain was arrested in July when a prospective member of the group phoned 911 claiming that he and another man had been kidnapped and were being held by Romain and other Black Hammer members. The man was rescued following a police standoff at a Fayetteville house used by the group as a headquarters and communal home.
Following the standoff, Romain and one of their chief deputies, 22-year-old Xavier “Keno” Hakeem Rushin, were charged with multiple felonies related to the alleged kidnapping and with operating a criminal street gang. Romain was also accused of sexually assaulting one of the men at gunpoint and faces aggravated sodomy charges.
Another member of the group,18-year-old Amonte “AP” Adams, alleged to have participated in holding the men captive was found in another part of the house dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
The 59-page indictment in state court charges Romain with 32 criminal counts including two counts of racketeering and 12 counts of violating Georgia’s anti-gang laws. Rushin faces 10 felony charges, the most serious relating to the alleged kidnapping.
The indictment also charged 11 other members of the Black Hammer Party under Georgia’s anti-racketeering law. Those members remain at large, but several are still active on social media where they attempt to keep the group relevant.
“From what I am seeing, they are still at it,” said Rebecca Federman, an analyst with the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism.
Various social media posts from members of the group express support for Russia, North Korea and Iran, while expressing what Federman described as “curious” behavior, including an alliance with the Patriot Socialist Front, a fringe group founded by a neo-Nazi white supremacist.
“That was curious because Black Hammer is obviously not white as an organization,” she said.
Last summer’s raid and arrests represented a dramatic coda for the Black Hammer Party’s meteoric ascent and precipitous fall on the radical political fringe.
The self-styled revolutionary group was founded in Atlanta in 2019 and rose to prominence during social justice protests in the summer of 2020, attracting hundreds of followers with a mixture of radical leftist politics, right-wing populism and QAnon-style conspiracy theories. The group established chapters across the United States, Africa and the Caribbean.
Credit: Fayette County Sheriff's Office
Credit: Fayette County Sheriff's Office
Romain and other members would frequent the Georgia State University campus and nearby Woodruff Park in downtown Atlanta to solicit donations and hold gatherings for homeless people who frequented the park. The events would often feature Romain loudly threatening the police and local politicians and predicting a bloody revolution in rants they would livestream on their social media channels.
The group was in decline when Romain and Rushin were arrested last summer. Its core Atlanta-based members had dwindled to a handful of steadfast Romain acolytes by the time of the raid.
After nearly a year in jail in Fayette County, Rushin, Romain’s deputy, appears ready to break ties. Earlier this year, Rushin mailed a handwritten letter to the court from jail proclaiming his innocence and saying he was “ready to testify against Gazi.”
Romain faces human trafficking charges for allegedly coercing Rushin and others to raise money for the Black Hammer Party. The trafficking charges alone could result in a prison term of up to 20 years should Romain be found guilty.
Whether the prosecution can make their case against Romain and Rushin may depend on the reliability of the chief witnesses. The two men who were allegedly kidnapped were homeless and had been recruited to be members of the group. In a hearing last fall, police investigators said the man who Romain allegedly sodomized was not cooperating with the investigation.
The case in Fayette County was originally set for trial earlier this spring and then moved to June, but both dates were vacated. Romain’s attorney said she has yet to receive discovery of the evidence against her client from prosecutors, and Rushin doesn’t have an attorney. The court has not set a new trial date in those cases.
Our reporting
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has followed the rise and fall of the Black Hammer Party for more than a year, speaking with current and former members of the group, interviewing extremism experts, and scouring the group’s extensive social media trail. Since then, the AJC has followed the progress of court cases involving the July 2022 police standoff in Fayetteville and the group’s alleged collusion with a Russian agent as those cases move ahead in the state and federal systems.
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