Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced yesterday that the Michigan Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by Justen Watkins, 26-year-old Bad Axe man and leader of national white supremacist group “The Base.”
The rejection, handed down last Friday, March 29, reaffirmed that Watkins’ plea agreement and sentence evaluation were unambiguous, a decision first made in November 2023 by the state’s Court of Appeals. The November decision, which also found Watkins’ did not plead involuntarily to conspiring to train for a civil disorder and felony firearm, upheld Watkins’ sentences of 32 months to 4 years’ incarceration, with a mandatory consecutive 2 years’ incarceration for his Felony Firearm conviction.
The Court of Appeals’ decision reversed a May 2023 decision by the Tuscola County Circuit Court to re-sentence Watkins.
Watkins was originally charged in October 2020 for a December 2019 incident in which he and several members terrorized a Dexter family, mistakenly believing the targeted home belonged to a podcaster who had spoken out against the Neo-Nazi movement. Later investigations revealed that Watkins and two other members had also entered vacant Corrections properties in Caro so they could evaluate them for paramilitary training, activities which lead to Watkins and his accomplices being charged by Tuscola County Prosecutor Mark Reene.
“The Base,” a literal translation of “Al-Qaeda,” was founded in 2018 and advocates for violence and criminal acts against the U.S. Along with supporting Nazi ideology and extreme anti-Semitism, it claims to be training for a race war to establish white ethno-nationalist rule in areas of the U.S., including Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
