Neo-Nazi said he was protecting kids by protesting drag. He just got busted with child porn.

A member of the notorious New England NSC-131 neo-Nazi group has been arrested on child pornography charges. The group has protested drag events and baselessly accused their patrons of supporting the sexual grooming of children.

Stephen Farrea of Portsmouth, Rhode Island was taken into custody on Friday and arraigned on one count of possessing child pornography, the Portsmouth Police Department said in a press release.

Related: Nazi group sued by state for disrupting LGBTQ+ events & drag story hours with threatening protests

The Nazi group stormed drag story hour events and shut others down. Now the state is suing.

NSC-131 launched a campaign in 2022 to terrorize the organizers and participants of drag queen story hour events around New England. In 2023, the Massachusetts attorney general sued the group and its two leaders for repeatedly engaging in “violent, threatening, intimidating, and coercive conduct” in the state.

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NSC-131 describes itself as a Nazi organization and “engages in a range of activities that it claims are intended to identify and combat the ‘enemies’ of ‘true white New Englanders,’” according to the suit.

The Southern Poverty Law Center says the group targets “New England’s immigrant, LGBTQ+, and Jewish communities, as well as antifascist and other left-leaning activists.” 

Farrea was arrested previously in 2022 after he refused to identify himself to police while recruiting for the group at a high school in East Providence. He and a second man charged pleaded no contest and were ordered to perform 20 hours of community service. 

The self-proclaimed Nazi became the subject of a new investigation on April 12 following a tip that he “may be involved in the possession of child pornography,” according to authorities.

A search warrant for Farrea’s home resulted in the seizure of several electronic devices. Forensic analysis revealed Farrea possessed “images of sexually explicit conduct between minors,” police said. 

Farrea was arraigned in Newport, where his bail was set at $5,000. He was ordered not to have any contact with minors and barred from using computers, smartphones, and the internet. He was also ordered to surrender any firearms.

A former corporal in the Marine Corps, Farrea was discharged after activists leaked his online advocacy for white supremacy in 2019, according to The Boston Globe. Online chats documented Farrea’s growing interest in white nationalism, sparked by the story of an Iraq War veteran who helped organize the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.

Farrea was described as an “anchor” for NSC-131’s presence in Rhode Island.

Last year, NSC-131 leader Christopher Hood described the group’s mission in a voice message shared on Telegram and reported by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“Obviously our government isn’t going to do anything about these invaders, or the drag queens, or antifa, or [Black Lives Matter],” Hood said. “This is in our hands. And the only thing that’s stopping us from eliminating these factions is us and our own inability to get with the program.”

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