Justin Watkins, 25 years old and of Bad Axe, was sentenced in Tuscola County yesterday for crimes he committed while the self-proclaimed leader of ‘The Base,’ a white supremacist group founded in 2018.
Watkins was sentenced to a mandatory 2 year charge for a felony firearm charge that will run consecutive to the 32 months to 4 years he also received for one count of conspiracy at sentencing by Tuscola County Judge Amy Gierhart . Watkins has the dubious honor of being the first defendant in Michigan’s history to face a charge of conspiring to train for a civil disorder, a charge that stems from his and two Base members visiting former Corrections facilities in Caro back in 2020 to scope out new grounds for the “hate camp” paramilitary training he led with the group.
He was on bond for several charges in Washtenaw County at the time of this outing, having been charged with the December 2019 terrorizing of a Dexter family. The hate group had mistaken the family home to be owned by a podcaster who had spoken out against the Neo-Nazi movement. Watkins pleaded guilty to a charge of gang membership in Washtenaw County on April 18 of this year, where he will be sentenced on June 13.
“The Base” (a literal English translation of the name Al-Quaeda) openly advocates for violence, preparing for a race war to establish white ethno-nationalist colonies in places like Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and espousing extreme anti-Semitic and Nazi ideology. Watkins claims that the group was training in preparation for “the violent overthrow of the government.”
