PLANO, Texas (CN) - Two Dallas-area men were accused Friday of concocting a half-baked scheme to use homeless people to invade a Haitian island, murder the male inhabitants and use the women and children as sex slaves.
Gavin Rivers Weisenburg, 21, of Allen, and Tanner Christopher Thomas, 20, of Argyle, were indicted by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Texas on charges of conspiracy to murder, maim or kidnap in a foreign country and production of child pornography. Federal prosecutors say the men spent a year planning to recruit and lead an “unlawful expeditionary force” to Haiti’s Gonave Island to carry out “rape fantasies.”
“Weisenburg and Thomas planned to purchase a sailboat, firearms and ammunition, then recruit members of the District of Columbia-area homeless population to serve as a mercenary force as they invaded Gonave Island and staged a coup d’etat,” the Justice Department said in a written statement. “Weisenburg and Thomas intended to murder all of the men on the island so that they could then turn all of the women and children into their sex slaves.”
Prosecutors allege the men prepared for the plot by learning Haitian Creole and enrolling in programs to gain military-style skills. Thomas allegedly enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, while Weisenburg enrolled in the North Texas Fire Academy to study command-and-control procedures. According to prosecutors, Weisenburg was dismissed from the academy on Feb. 8, then bought plane tickets to Thailand twelve days later to attend a sailing school and learn to operate the invasion boat.
"Once in Thailand, Weisenburg ultimately did not enroll in the sailing school due to cost," the ten-page indictment states. "On or about March 14, 2025, Tanner Christopher Thomas, while in Air Force basic training, successfully changed his initial station assignment from Ramstein Air Base in Germany to Andrews Air Base in Maryland for the dual purposes of remaining in the United States to facilitate the group's armed coup attack, and being located near the District of Columbia to facilitate the recruitment of members of the area's homeless population to serve as members of the their unlawful expeditionary force."
Each defendant faces up to life in prison on the conspiracy charge and up to 5 years on the child pornography charge. The defendants are accused of coercing a minor to send a sexually explicit video in August 2024.
Thomas was arrested Thursday and is currently being held at the Collin County Jail, according to jail records. Weisenburg is no longer listed as an inmate as of Friday afternoon.
Gonave has a population of over 87,000 and is approximately 50 miles west of the capital, Port-au-Prince. The island covers over 266 square miles in the Gulf of Gonave.
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