{"id":7989,"date":"2026-07-16T21:24:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T16:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=7989"},"modified":"2026-07-16T21:24:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T16:24:21","slug":"2-of-8-men-charged-in-thwarted-attack-on-ufc-cage-fighting-show-at-white-house-plead-not-guilty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=7989","title":{"rendered":"2 of 8 men charged in thwarted attack on UFC cage-fighting show at White House plead not guilty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"prism-article-body\">\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \"><span class=\"oyrPY qlwaB AGxeB  \">COLUMBUS, Ohio &#8212; <\/span>Two of the eight men indicted on murder and terrorism conspiracy charges for their alleged roles in a thwarted drone and sniper attack on the <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/trump-80th-ufc-white-house-724c875d7a7cbfed087e179e8f689ec0\">UFC cage-fighting show<\/a> at the White House last month pleaded not guilty Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Tycen Proper, 19, of Danville, Ohio, and Chandler Scaggs, 21, of Chapmanville, West Virginia, entered the pleas before U.S. District Court Judge Edmund Sargus Jr. in Columbus, Ohio. Each is charged, as are the six others, with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to commit murder on federal government territory and to murder a federal government official.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Sargus set their trial date for Sept. 14. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cWhat would have happened or could have happened, that&#8217;s never going to be clear, because, thank God, there was an intervention here and this thing was disrupted,\u201d U.S. Attorney Dominick Gerace II told reporters last week as he detailed the group&#8217;s <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/trump-ufc-show-attack-plot-3b1142773319ce650a916e61901ad35b\">July 9 indictments<\/a>. \u201cBut, in my view, when I look at what&#8217;s been alleged there, it seems pretty likely that someone or multiple people were driving to Washington, D.C., to do something.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">A message seeking comment was left with Proper&#8217;s attorney. Scaggs&#8217; lawyer declined to comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">According to the indictment, the plot began in May. Members of the group \u2014 citing grievances about government corruption, <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/ai-data-centers-environment-climate-footprint-a792f184a9f2833b5388dbae8b41ca95\">water-guzzling data centers<\/a> and the Trump administration&#8217;s <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/epstein-trump-bondi-904822e788fa02fd6bd5c8181d0c9c08\">handling of the Epstein files<\/a> \u2014 began amassing money, firearms, ammunition, body armor, explosives, drones, medical equipment, communications equipment and other items.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The attack was planned to take place at the cage-fighting show dubbed UFC Freedom 250, which was held on the South Lawn of the White House to celebrate the nation&#8217;s 250th anniversary. Law enforcement officials said they learned of the possible threat four days before the event was scheduled to take place.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">One of the defendants told investigators that they planned to fly explosive-laden drones into the event and then shoot panicked crowd members as they fled, according to a federal affidavit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The Justice Department announced charges against seven people from across the country, including from Ohio, Missouri, Washington, Nebraska and California. Officials said the suspects harbored fringe conspiracy theories and hoped the attack would destabilize the government.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Four alleged conspirators charged in Missouri, Nebraska and California the weekend of the event and two more charged about a week later in Washington and Missouri are still in the process of being moved to Ohio to face charges. Their cases have been consolidated in Sargus&#8217; court and they are likely to be tried as a group.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">Scaggs was arrested last, but brought to Ohio ahead of the other out-of-state defendants. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>COLUMBUS, Ohio &#8212; Two of the eight men indicted on murder and terrorism conspiracy charges for their alleged roles in a thwarted drone and sniper attack on the UFC cage-fighting show at the White House last month pleaded not guilty Thursday. Tycen Proper, 19, of Danville, Ohio, and Chandler Scaggs, 21, of Chapmanville, West Virginia,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7990,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.abcnews.com\/images\/US\/abc_news_default_2000x2000_update_16x9_992.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}