Davis Junction brothers have long ties to supremacist groups
PHOENIX – One of two Ogle County brothers charged in a 2004 bombing that injured a black city official in a Phoenix suburb had extensive ties with white supremacist groups and once was deported from Canada because of his activities.
Groups that track hate groups describe Dennis Mahon, 58, as a prominent player in such groups for 15 to 20 years. Not as much is known about his less vocal twin brother, Daniel Mahon, but he also was a member of such groups, federal officials said Friday.
The Mahons are charged with conspiracy to damage buildings and property by means of explosive. They were arrested Thursday at their home in Davis Junction, where authorities say they found assault weapons, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and white supremacist material.
Authorities didn’t know if the brothers had attorneys.
On Feb. 26, 2004, a package detonated in the hands of Don Logan, Scottsdale’s diversity director at the time, in the city’s Human Resources Complex.
The explosion injured his hand and arm and hurt a secretary; both needed surgery and spent about a week in the hospital.
Dennis Mahon was a veteran white supremacist organizer, leading the Ku Klux Klan in Oklahoma in 1991, recruiting neo-Nazis and skinheads in the former East Germany, and later joining White Aryan Resistance, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based nonprofit that tracks hate groups.
“Dennis Mahon has been a fairly major player for at least 15 years now, close to 20 actually,” said Mark Potok, director of the center’s Intelligence Project. “Dennis Mahon in the 90s was one of the scarier guys around.”
In 1993, Dennis Mahon was deported from Canada after an immigration official ruled he would likely break the law while there, according to an Associated Press article from the time.
His arrest and deportation came after officials there obtained a videotape of a speech Mahon gave to the neo-Nazi Heritage Front in Toronto in 1991 and similar tapes from Germany and the U.S.
Daniel Mahon was less prominently involved in the white supremacist movement than his brother, but was a member of the White Aryan Resistance and a recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
A federal indictment unsealed Thursday says the Mahon brothers conspired to build and mail a bomb to Scottsdale’s diversity office, taught others how to build a package containing a pipe bomb, and sent training materials on the production and use of explosives, techniques to avoid detection by law enforcement, and methods to commit domestic terrorism.
The indictment says Dennis Mahon participated in the construction of the bomb, disguising it in a cardboard box that was delivered to the diversity office.
One month before the bombing, the indictment says, Dennis Mahon called the diversity office and left a message saying, “the White Aryan Resistance is growing in Scottsdale. There’s a few white people who are standing up.”
The package was addressed to Logan, who served as an ombudsman for city employees and citizens on diversity issues, including racial and sex discrimination. The bomb was sent through the post office to the city building, which is about a block from City Hall. The explosion forced the evacuation of 25 people in the building.
Dennis Mahon also is charged with malicious damage of a building by means of explosive and distribution of information related to explosives, according to the indictment.
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Associated Press Writer Bob Christie contributed to this report.
