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July 14, 2021 By Michael Dorgan
A Bayside man who glorified an attack against Jews and fantasized about a mass shooting has been sentenced to nearly five years in prison for buying an illegally defaced firearm.
Joseph Miner, 31, was sentenced in Brooklyn federal court Tuesday to 57 months in prison for purchasing a Glock 9mm handgun with a scraped-off serial number, prosecutors said.
Miner was caught trying to buy the weapon from an undercover FBI agent posing as a gun dealer at a Queens hotel near LaGuardia Airport in May 2020. Daniel Jou, his neighbor, was also busted in the sting.
Law enforcement began tracking Miner in late 2019 after he took to social media in an attempt to get weapons for a “racial holy war,” prosecutors said.
Federal officials said Miner posted several social media messages where he fantasized about becoming a martyr and described how he would “go out in a blaze of glory” in a mass shooting attack.
Prosecutors added that, on occasions, Miner disavowed interest in conducting an attack by himself.
Nevertheless, Miner had a history of posting racist and anti-Semitic messages and allegedly celebrated a number of hate crimes that had made headlines, prosecutors said.
For example, he described a 2019 machete attack at a synagogue in Monsey, NY, as exciting and expressed praise for the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virg. on social media, according to authorities.
Other posts included a photograph of Miner giving a Nazi salute and another of a Planned Parenthood facility being blown up by the comic book character the Joker, prosecutors said.
“Tbh [to be honest] dying fighting Paki and African pieces of shit in Europe wouldn’t be the worst way to go. Die a hero,” he wrote, according to prosecutors.
Miner pleaded guilty to the firearm charge in January. He had also purchased an AR-15-style ghost gun and a Mossberg 500 shotgun off the undercover agent but charges for those weapons were dropped as part of his plea agreement, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Acting U.S. Attorney Jacquelyn Kasulis said that illegal guns pose a serious threat to the safety of the community.
“Today’s sentence holds Miner accountable for his knowing purchase of a firearm that could not be traced because its serial number had been removed,” Kasulis said.
- Meanwhile, Jou, his neighborhood, is scheduled to appear in federal court on Aug. 31 to face charges. He is expected to plead guilty.
