Man who sought to spark 'race war' pleads guilty to firebombing O.C. Planned Parenthood clinic

Man who sought to spark ‘race war’ pleads guilty to firebombing O.C. Planned Parenthood clinic

Costa Mesa Planned Parenthood clinic in March 2022

Staff Writer

Feb. 29, 2024 Updated 12 PM PT

The final defendant tied to the firebombing of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Costa Mesa pleaded guilty Thursday for his role in that crime and for another plot to damage Orange County’s power grid.

Tibet Ergul, 22, pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to damage an energy facility and intentional damage to a Reproductive Health Services Facility. He was one of three suspects arrested in connection with the 2022 attack on the clinic.

Ergul’s co-defendants, Xavier Batten, of Brooksville, Fla., and Chance Brannon, of San Juan Capistrano, also pleaded guilty in recent months. Ergul had been slated to go to trial in March.

Prosecutors are seeking a sentence range of five to just over six years in prison.

Ergul’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

Martin Estrada, U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said the Justice Department is “very much focused on this and making sure that we investigate these cases and prosecute them aggressively.”

“There’s really been a rise throughout the country in terms of what I’ll call domestic extremism, but might otherwise be called groups motivated by hate and hateful ideology,” Estrada said.

According to the plea agreement, on the morning of March 13, 2022, Ergul and Brannon — disguised in dark clothing, hoods, masks, and gloves — ignited a Molotov cocktail and threw it at the clinic’s entrance.

The men targeted the clinic because it provided reproductive health services and they “wanted to make a statement against abortion, scare pregnant women away from obtaining abortions, deter doctors, staff, and employees of the clinic from providing abortions, intimidate and interfere with the patients of the clinic, and encourage others to engage in similar acts of protest,” the agreement states.

The facility was forced to temporarily close and staff had to reschedule around 30 appointments.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Ergul and Brannon planned to use a second Molotov cocktail to damage another Planned Parenthood clinic, but did not follow through with it after seeing law enforcement near their intended target, the plea agreement states.

Ergul then conspired with others, including Brannon, to use firearms or a Molotov cocktail to damage a Southern California Edison electrical substation, according to the agreement.

In March 2023, the agreement states, Ergul messaged an associate to say that he had found a substation to target in the city of Orange with a fence area “nearby enough to a switch.” He sent Brannon aerial photos and suggested going to the location at 3 a.m. to do a “drive thru” and either climbing on the roof of a nearby building or throwing the Molotov cocktail “across the fence” to reach a “critical portion” of the substation.

Ergul even wrote Brannon a letter, the agreement states, in which he said: “The rifle is in a box in my room waiting to be used in the upcoming race war. . . VOTING DOESN’T CHANGE ANYTHING. IF IT DID, IT WOULD BE ILLEGAL.”

He added that he had “an unbelievable desire to murder journalists and politicians as soon as some chaotic event begins.”

“They didn’t want to go through legitimate channels to voice their political views. They wanted to take violent action,” Estrada said. “And unfortunately that’s something that we’re seeing throughout the country.”

Throughout the summer of 2023, Ergul and Brannon also researched how to attack the parking lot or electrical room of Dodger Stadium on a night celebrating LGBTQ pride, including by using a remote-detonated device, the plea agreement states.

He and Brannon, then an active duty Marine, were arrested two days before the “Pride Night” at the stadium.

“This group was plotting attacks all over Southern California,” Estrada said.