Alabama militia-member arrested in Georgia for illegally possessing gun while trying to buy horse
Alabama militia-member arrested in Georgia for illegally possessing gun while trying to buy horse
He plead guilty in October 2023. Now, he’s been sentenced to four years in prison.
FITZGERALD, Ga. — Joshua Colston traveled from his home in Corinth, Mississippi to Fitzgerald in Ben Hill County in 2022 to buy a horse and “get off the grid,” prosecutors say.
However, he got a lot more than he was bargaining for.
But instead of riding off on horseback, he was arrested by FBI agents for illegally possessing a firearm as a convicted felon, federal prosecutors say.
But they say Colston had been under government surveillance for participating in an “anti-government extremist organization” that discussed a kidnapping scheme against federal elected officials that never came to fruition.
On Thursday, Colston learned his sentence — four years in federal prison — for illegally possessing a firearm, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Georgia said in a press release.
According to prosecutors, they say Colston was part of a discussion on an encrypted voice-chat app called Zello for a group dubbed “NCM:” the National Constitutional Milia.
There, prosecutors say they conceived of a plan to attack and kidnap federal officials on Thanksgiving Day 2022, but they never acted on the planned scheme because of “the group’s lack of resources and the poor health of the members,” the press release said.
But eventually, Colston was arrested after he traveled from Mississippi to Fitzgerald to buy a horse, which he said he planned on riding across the U.S. for several years as part of a plan to go “off the grid,” the prosecutors said.
They say Colston had been convicted previously of theft and mischief for a case in Texas, and under federal law, it is illegal for felons to possess a gun.
While in Georgia, federal agents found he had five guns: two semi-automatic pistols, a semi-automatic shotgun, a lever action rifle and a semi-automatic rifle that had been reported stolen out of Mississippi, the press release said.
Prosecutors also say he had a bulletproof vest and over 3,5000 rounds of ammunition in his possession, and the FBI believed Colston had training in explosives too.
Colston pleaded guilty in October 2023 to one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and on Thursday, Colston appeared before U.S. District Judge Leslie Gardner where he was sentenced to four years in prison.