Craig Cobb

Cobb says he grew up a Christian, but has since denounced Christianity, saying "I don't understand Christians. They have a need to be morally superior than the next guy. ... They are very threatened by anything with racial cohesion."[9]

After serving in the armed forces, he lived in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, for five years before moving to Hawaii, where he lived for another 25 years and earned a living as a taxi driver.[10]

In 2003, he relocated to Frost, West Virginia, where he opened a grocery store and subsequently registered a business called "Gray's Store, Aryan Autographs and 14 Words, L.L.C." During this time, he was involved in unsolicited inter-state deliveries of a neo-Nazi newspaper published by Alex Linder,[11] and distribution of Project Schoolyard CDs to local children,.[12]

In late 2005, after receiving an inheritance of $85,000, he moved to Tallinn, Estonia. In Tallinn, Cobb met with white power skinheads, and purchased land 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Tallinn where he hoped to establish an "International Office of White Diaspora".[13][14] During this period, Cobb established Podblanc, a white supremacist video sharing website. He also unsuccessfully attempted to find an Estonian wife[15] and came to public attention after conducting an interview with a former Estonian Ministry of Justice employee whom he introduced as the leader of the Estonian Neo-Nazis.[16] On August 25, 2009, he was issued a ten-year ban from Estonia and deported to Canada, where Cobb claims to hold citizenship, for "endangering state security, public order, public safety, moral standards, health, other public interests"[17] and promoting racism.[18][19] During his period of incarceration before deportation, his supporters in the US made contact with Canadian neo-fascist Paul Fromm in order to prepare for Cobb's anticipated arrest under Canadian hate speech laws. In March 2010, after posting videos of anti-racist activists online, he was discovered to be living in the Downtown Eastside area of Vancouver, British Columbia, where he also made an unsuccessful attempt to register a non-profit society called Whitepeace.[1][20]

In June 2010, Cobb was arrested by police in Vancouver, but released with a summons[21] after which he left Canada to return to the United States. In 2010, Cobb was living in Kalispell, Montana, which was a recruiting target for several white nationalists.[22] Cobb engaged in a feud with another local neo-Nazi, Karl Gharst, against whom he had filed a restraining order in October 2010.[23] His activities were opposed by the local pro-tolerance group Love Lives Here.[24] At the end of December 2010, Canadian authorities issued a warrant for his arrest on the charge of "willful promotion of hatred" after a failure to appear".[25][26] Cobb responded to the warrant by stating "You can find me in the orange easy chair near the elevator" at the Flathead County Library in Kalispell.[27][28]

Cobb expressed interest in purchasing lots in Regan, North Dakota, and Crosby, North Dakota,[36][37] and said he would leave Leith if his charges will be dropped.[38] In February 2014, he sold his house in Leith and one other plot of land to a man from neighboring Carson, and in March he deeded his remaining lots back to Leith. Of the lots he originally purchased, three remain owned by Alex Linder, Tom Metzger, and Jeff Schoep. The lot owned by Linder was seized for non payment of property taxes.[39] In 2016 he started dating a 38 year old paralegal from Texas, Emily Henderson, who is also a White Nationalist and had been a member of The World Church of the Creator, joining the same year Cobb did, 2002. After meeting in person in Missouri and spending more time together, they decided to stay a couple and she moved to Sherwood, North Dakota to be with him. He was on probation in the State of North Dakota at that time. They were both mentioned in the local media when they tried to buy a house in Landa and were turned away.[40] Cobb wanted to buy a church in Nome, North Dakota and Henderson wrote the contract for it. When the church, which was not insured, burned in 2017, the contract was so iron clad that all the monies were returned to Cobb.[41] Henderson and Cobb both own homes in Sherwood, North Dakota and are trying to expand their family. Cobb has been off probation since 2018.[42][43]

In September 2013, Custer Health Environmental Services in Mandan, North Dakota, which provides safety and sanitation inspections for five counties, including Grant County, had issued 12 citations that month to 10 individuals, including Cobb.[44] Citing Cobb's failure to install a running water and sewage system in his properties within the 30-day deadline,[44] the health unit announced that it would seek a court order to condemn his properties,[44] unless he cooperated and released a plan detailing future water and sewage installation.[44] Afterwards, Cobb announced that he had no intention of cooperating with the health unit and planned to fight the eviction notice.[44]

In November 2013, Cobb and Kynan Dutton were arrested by two Grant county deputies and held in the Mercer County jail. Dutton was already out on bond for a previous drunk and disorderly conduct charge. Cobb was upset, claiming his property was vandalized by the town's residents; two videos from their subsequent 'patrol' were posted on YouTube. They were booked on suspicion of terrorizing.[45] Ultimately, the two were charged with six counts of "terrorizing". However, the district attorney dropped the second of seven original counts after one man—acting as a reporter in some capacity—later claimed that he "did not feel threatened". According to the Leith website developer, Cobb and the other man arrested held the guns high and then lowered them, but did not speak and did not point the guns directly at the men.[46] The two men subsequently appeared in court for a bond hearing, and the court decided that both should be held without bail.[47] He refused food while in prison, but said that his refusal was not a hunger strike; rather, he was practising mahasamādhi and that he believed he would leave his physical body for another "plane of existence" at Yuletide. He also said he considers himself a martyr.[48] Together with his follower Kynan Dutton the two men were scheduled for a preliminary hearing on seven felony accounts of terrorism to be held on January 13, 2014.[49] His bail was set at $1 million.[50]

After a plea agreement, Cobb was released on April 29, 2014, on four years' probation and time served. Leith's Mayor Ryan Schock and Councilman Lee Cook, who was one of Cobb's victims, expressed concerns for the town's safety because Cobb had given property to white separatist Tom Metzger, National Socialist Movement Commander Jeff Schoep and white supremacist Alex Linder. Cobb himself had earlier announced his "retirement from white nationalism" and has said that he will seek permission to transfer his probation to Missouri where he will look after his mother.[51]

In October 2013, Cobb was featured as a guest on The Trisha Goddard Show, where he met with the lone black resident of Leith and his white wife. The couple said that their lives were being disrupted and that their experience in Leith since Cobb moved in was being ridden with "turmoil and deception". The episode featured Shahrazad Ali, who agreed with Cobb on the concept of racial separation.[52] In a November 2013 interview, Goddard revealed the results of a DNA test, to which Cobb had agreed, indicating that he was genetically 14 percent Sub-Saharan African. Cobb dismissed the results as "statistical noise".[53] USA Today report that this may have been a contributing factor in arguments between Cobb and Dutton which led to their arrest.[7]

Cobb said in March 2015 that a second DNA test found him Caucasian except for what he called a "3% Iberian thing".[8]