Nathan Daniel Larson via DOJ
An avowed white supremacist and child pornography advocate who was accused of kidnapping a 12-year-old girl has died while in federal custody.
Nathan Daniel Larson, 42, was pronounced dead on Sept. 18, 2022 while awaiting trial on multiple federal felony charges, the feds confirmed to Law&Crime.
The charges against Larson included kidnapping, sexual exploitation of a minor, receipt and distribution of child pornography, interstate transport of an individual to engage in illegal sexual activity, and coercion or enticement of a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity, court records show. Due to his death, the Justice Department can no longer prosecute the case against Larson.
“Nathan Larson died on 9/18/22. An order of dismissal in his case was filed on 10/11/22,” Lauren Horwood, the public information officer for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California, said in an email to Law&Crime. “I don’t have any details on his death.”
The notice for dismissal says that prosecutors moved to “dismiss the indictment against Nathan Daniel Larson, without prejudice and in the interest of justice.”
According to the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office, the coroner’s report for Larson’s death is not yet available and the cause and manner of death are both listed as “pending.”
Prosecutors alleged that Larson abducted a 12-year-old victim in December 2020. He allegedly flew to Fresno, California, where the victim lived, and convinced the child to sneak out of her home at approximately 2 a.m. and accompany him to the airport.
In a bid to avoid detection, he allegedly made her put on a wig and act like she was disabled, unable to talk.
Authorities claimed to learn that Larson also manipulated and “groomed” the girl into sending him “pornographic images of herself.” They described him as a “white supremacist and a well-known advocate for pedophilia” in court documents.
When asked in a 2018 interview if he was a pedophile or simply wrote about the subject, Larson reportedly said, “It’s a mix of both.”
“When people go over the top there’s a grain of truth to what they say,” he added.
In a pseudonymous forum post, which he confirmed he wrote, Larson voiced a desire to “bang” his daughter. He claimed that he gave up his parental rights in a custody battle. He reportedly told The Washington Post in a 2017 interview that his daughter was living with relatives in Colorado. He claimed to have only seen the girl once and said the girl’s mother died by suicide, according to the report.
Prior to being arrested on the aforementioned charges, Larson unsuccessfully ran for public office in Virginia three times.
Back in 2018, he was running for Congress as an independent, self-described libertarian for Virginia’s 10 district. His platform included legalizing incestuous marriages and child pornography, and literally categorizing women as a property. He had been quoted as glorifying Adolf Hitler as a “white supremacist hero.” As a candidate, Larson did not even make it to election day, dropping out of the race in August 2018. He said it was because his home — where he lived with his parents — was burglarized.
Larson’s criminal history dates back some years. In a 2009 plea agreement, he admitted to writing the Secret Service in an email to a White House email address on December 11, 2008: “I am writing to inform you that in the near future, I will kill the President of the United States of America.”
Fresno officials noted that George W. Bush was the incumbent at the time, while Barack Obama was president-elect. Secret Service agents said they spoke with Larson, who explicitly eliminated any alternate explanation for the statement. They asked if he was “joking, letting off steam, or just trying to draw attention to his political views,” according to court documents obtained by Law&Crime. From records:
The defendant’s responses indicated that he was serious about carrying out his threat. The defendant had taken no action to carry out or effectuate the actions threatened by the email.
Larson served 14 months in federal prison for the threatening actions beginning in 2009.
Alberto Luperon contributed to this report.
[Images via the Department of Justice]
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