‘Incel’ Is Charged With Plotting to Shoot Women, U.S. Says

An Ohio man who was part of an online community of “incels,” or misogynists who blame women for denying them what they believe is their right to sexual intercourse, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with plotting to shoot students in sororities, federal prosecutors said.

The man, Tres Genco, 21, of Hillsboro, Ohio, was charged with one count of attempting to commit a hate crime, which, because it involved an attempt to kill, is punishable by up to life in prison, and one count of illegally possessing a machine gun, which is punishable by up to 10 years, according to the Justice Department.

Mr. Genco’s public defender, Richard Monahan, did not immediately respond to messages on Wednesday.

From July 2019 to March 2020, according to a federal indictment, Mr. Genco was active on a website for “incels,” short for involuntary celibates, a label that members of the community claim for themselves.

The movement gained widespread attention in 2014, when Elliot Rodger, a self-described incel who left behind misogynistic ramblings, killed six people, including two women outside a sorority house, in Isla Vista, Calif.

In 2018, a man drove a rental van onto a busy Toronto sidewalk, killing 10 people and badly injuring 16, minutes after he had posted a Facebook tribute to Mr. Rodger and proclaimed, “The Incel Rebellion has already begun!”

Mr. Genco, who had attended Army basic training at Fort Benning in Georgia from August 2019 to December 2019, had also expressed admiration for Mr. Rodger, prosecutors said.

Before his attack, Mr. Rodger had shot a group of college students with orange juice from a water gun, prosecutors said.

Mr. Genco posted on an incel website that he had also shot couples and “foids” — short for “femoids,” an incel term for women — with orange juice from a water gun, which made him feel “spiritually connected to the saint on that day,” according to the indictment.

On Aug. 3, 2019, Mr. Genco wrote a manifesto titled “A Hideous Symphony,” by “Tres Genco, the socially exiled Incel,” in which he stated that he would “slaughter” women out of “hatred, jealousy and revenge,” prosecutors said. That same day, Mr. Genco searched online for sororities and a university in Ohio, which was not named in a federal indictment.

On Jan. 11, 2020, prosecutors said, Mr. Genco wrote another document entitled “isolated,” in which he said: “If you’re reading this, I’ve done something horrible. Somehow you’ve come across the writings of the deluded and homicidal,” prosecutors said. He signed the document, “Your hopeful friend and murderer.”

Four days later, Mr. Genco conducted surveillance at an unidentified university in Ohio and searched on the internet for “planning a shooting crime” and “when does preparing for a crime become an attempt,” prosecutors said.

On March 11, 2020, Mr. Genco searched online for police scanner codes for the police in Columbus, Ohio, and university police, prosecutors said.

The next day, the police went to Mr. Genco’s home and found, in the trunk of his vehicle, a firearm with a bump stock attached, several loaded magazines, body armor and boxes of ammunition, prosecutors said.

Inside Mr. Genco’s home, police officers found a Glock-style 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol with no manufacturer’s marks or serial number, hidden in a heating vent in his bedroom, prosecutors said.

Seamus Hughes contributed reporting.