On the afternoon of Dec. 12, 2025, passing clouds over the Mohave Desert kept the temperature to a crisp 63 degrees as members of what the government now calls a “violent, homegrown, antigovernment group” bustled around a campsite on a scrubby clearing, intent on finishing their mission – building bombs. Card tables trekked into the desert were crowded with the materials they needed, pistol primers, shoelaces, PVC pipes, plastic tubs of potassium nitrate, all shielded from the sun by an overhead tent, along with stickers that read “Free Palestine.”
Bomb making materials recovered in a raid by members of the FBI SWAT team on Dec. 12, 2025 in the Mohave Desert Credit: Department of Justice
A raven-haired Kansas City native named Audrey Illeene Carroll, a 30-year-old graduate of the private Catholic college DePaul University in Chicago, took a leadership position at one end of the table. Those assembled called themselves “The Order of the Black Lotus,” and self-identified as a “radical” arm of the activist group Turtle Island Liberation Front. They had been given their instructions, eight hand-scrawled pages codenamed “Operation Midnight Sun,” that prosecutors say was authored by Carroll, and now it was time to get to work.
It was something prosecutors say Carroll had been mulling over for weeks: using the cover of New Year’s Eve firework celebrations across Los Angeles to mask the sounds of a targeted TILF bombing campaign that would hit five locations at exactly midnight to ring in 2026.
Audrey Carroll, 30, a native of Kansas City and a Catholic school activist, is the accused ringleader of a purported planned terror attack that would have detonated multiple bombs at 5 targets on New Year’s Eve Credit: Department of Justice
In the weeks leading up to the meeting in the Mohave Desert, Carroll had met with members of TILF to detail “Operation Midnight Sun,” according to an indictment, which would serve as the opening salvo in the group’s war that would soon include targeting federal agents with pipe bomb attacks “that would take some of them out and scare the rest of them.”
Teams of four would drive “complex pipe bombs” – multiple explosive devices affixed to one another to make a super bomb – to the target locations, which would be marked by a “red triangle” and an anti-government message before being “detonated simultaneously on New Year’s Eve 2025.” Communication should only occur through an encrypted chat called “Order of the Black Lotus.” Carroll allegedly instructed the group that “absolutely no mistakes can be made,” and laid out details like the use of “BlacBloc” clothing and masks to shield their identities. Gloves and covered hair were essential. Phones and devices were to be left at home, set up to “stream a long movie during the time of the attacks,” to create alibis. Everyone should put a pebble in their shoe to alter their gait in case they were captured on surveillance cameras.
On the way to the desert, Carroll mused aloud to her alleged coconspirators – completely unaware that one of them was an undercover FBI agent who was wearing a wire. “What we’re doing will be considered a terrorist act.”
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She was right. As the alleged aspiring bomb makers began to grind explosive materials, the undercover FBI agent signaled his colleagues that “bomb testing was imminent.” Within seconds, heavily-armed agents from the FBI SWAT team swarmed the desert, arresting Carroll and Zachary Aaron Page, 32, of Torrance; Dante Gaffield, 24, of South Los Angeles; and Tina Lai, 41, of Glendale.
They weren’t the only ones taken into custody by the FBI that day. Another member of the Black Lotus chat group was also under surveillance in Louisiana. Agents watch as that man, former U.S. Marine Micah Legnon, “load what appeared to be assault rifle and body armor,” as he texted the group “just in case,” and pointed his car, prosecutors say, toward New Orleans. Legnon was pulled over in a car stop by deputies with the Parish Sheriff’s Office who recovered an assault rifle, a pistol, one gas canister, and body armor in his vehicle. A federal search warrant executed on Legnon’s residence revealed sniper training manuals, SWAT training manuals, assault rifles, and multiple rounds of ammunition.
Former U.S. Marine Micah Legnon is now charged in a complex terror plot as a purported member of a fringe group affiliated with the pro-Palestine Turtle Island Liberation Front after an arrest near New OrleansCredit: Department of Justice
“These arrests mark the disruption of a dangerous conspiracy to spread fear and terror across Southern California and the United States on New Year’s Eve, as well as to conduct future attacks targeting federal officers,” said John A. Eisenberg, Assistant Attorney General for National Security.
How did this unlikely coterie of aspiring alleged domestic terrorists, all of whom have pleaded not guilty and are being detained while awaiting trial, come together?
Before this winter day in southern California, Carroll had worked as an intern in Illinois Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth’s office, volunteered on the most recent Chicago mayoral campaign, and ran the social media accounts for NEXT – a Catholic social justice advocacy. Her profile on that site gushes that she is inspired by “my generation’s zero-tolerance policy for hatred and injustice.” On social media, the FBI now alleges, she espoused quite a different philosophy, one that identified her as a “Hamas fan girl.” She also admitted in a text message, the FBI says, to keeping what she called “my terrorist diary.”
In Carroll’s South Los Angeles home, prosecutors say, investigators found pro-Palestine propaganda and anti-ICE messaging. She had pleaded not guilty.
Materials recovered in the South Los Angeles home of Aubrey CarrollCredit: Department of Justice
In the home of Zachary Page, who identifies as a woman, investigators recovered a copy of the handwritten attack plan, prosecutors say. His defense attorney, John McNicholas, argued that his client is not a flight risk, that he had been married to a woman with whom he shares a four-year-old son, and argued to a federal judge that the possession of unassembled bomb-making materials is not the same as being in possession of a “destructive device.” The judge disagreed and ordered Page held.
Zachary Page is being held in a men’s federal detention cell despite asking to be held in a woman’s facility Credit: Department of Justice
Prosecutors laid out one anti-Israeli conversation the duo had allegedly exchanged in on the Order of the Black Lotus chat group. In it, Page is accused of writing: “death to israel death to the usa death to colonizers death to settler-coloniasm [sic.].”
In response, Carroll allegedly wrote back, “Death to them all, burn it all down,” followed by three emojis of a burning heart.
Days later, ringleader Carroll wrote to the group, “I identify as a terrorist,” and “I am a Hamas fangirl.”
Later that day, Gaffield wrote to the group, “I am here to destroy Zionism by any means necessary.”
In Gaffield’s South L.A. home, investigators recovered a taser that had been stolen from an agent working for the U.S. Federal Protective Service. Gaffield, who came into the Operation Midnight Sun plot about a week before the FBI raid, was allegedly charged with securing burner phones intended for the operation.
Dante Gaffield, 24, was in possession of a taser reported stolen by a federal agent, prosecutors say, and was arrested in the Mohave Desert as part of a bomb plotCredit: Department of Justice
His attorneys argue that he played a minor role and did not transport bomb making materials, but prosecutors argue he has a history of arrests and mental illness issues that make him a danger to the public. A judge had ordered him detained while awaiting trial.
In Lai’s home in Glendale, investigators found pieces of PVC piping, prosecutors say.
Tina Lai was arrested by the FBI for her alleged role in a New Year’s Eve terror plot in Los AngelesCredit: Department of Justice
Last week a federal grand jury indicted the suspects on additional federal charges that include one count of providing and attempting to provide material support to terrorists, and one count of possession of unregistered firearms. The suspects are all expected to appear for arraignment in the United States District Court in downtown Los Angeles in early 2026. Lai’s arraignment is scheduled for January 2. Carroll and Page are scheduled to be arraigned on January 5. Gaffield’s arraignment is scheduled for January 20.
If convicted, Carroll and Page would face a statutory maximum sentence of life in federal prison, and Gaffield and Lai would face a statutory maximum sentence of 25 years in federal prison.