By An Oregon teenager accused of plotting to bomb, kill and even behead federal immigration officers will avoid a lengthy prison sentence after prosecutors dropped 13 of the 15 felony charges against him, including the state’s new domestic terrorism charges.
Rayden Tanner Coleman, 19, of Columbia City, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Columbia County Circuit Court to two counts of unlawfully manufacturing a destructive device. Judge Michael T. Clarke sentenced him to 36 months of supervised probation and 75 days in jail, with credit for time already served. Coleman must also continue mental health treatment, undergo evaluations, forfeit seized weapons and pay $550 in fines and fees, according to reports.
That is a dramatically different outcome from where the case began.
Coleman was originally facing 15 felony charges, including attempted first-degree domestic terrorism, second-degree domestic terrorism, attempted assault and multiple destructive-device offenses. Columbia County District Attorney Joshua Pond called it “an incredibly serious case” after a grand jury added the terrorism charges in February, saying at the time that he believed it was the first prosecution brought under Oregon’s relatively new domestic-terrorism statute.
Police arrested Coleman on Feb. 4, when he was 18, during a traffic stop near the assisted-living facility where he worked. The investigation began after acquaintances and the parent of one of his roommates contacted authorities over statements Coleman allegedly made about targeting Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
According to court records, Coleman discussed creating a group called the Cascadia Rangers and recruiting others to his cause. Investigators said he was gathering bottles to practice making incendiary devices, had surveillance equipment in his vehicle and was purchasing an AR-style rifle that arrived the same day he was arrested. Police said the bottles found in his car had been partially filled with sand so Coleman could practice throwing them before turning them into Molotov cocktails.
The allegations went well beyond angry political rhetoric.
A probable-cause affidavit quoted Coleman writing, “I will actively kill any ICE agents killing or kidnapping civilians,” and separately, “I know this might sound crazy but I have a plan.”
Authorities also alleged that Coleman discussed following ICE agents, killing them and taking severed heads to help prove his seriousness while recruiting others. Pond said investigators learned that “A hatchet was obtained for the stated purpose of decapitating agents. There was an AR-15 that was purchased and had not yet arrived but arrived the same date as the arrest.”
Coleman acknowledged discussing attacks on federal officers during questioning but told investigators that some of his statements had been made in anger. He initially pleaded not guilty to the full slate of charges.
Under Tuesday’s deal, however, the terrorism and attempted-assault cases went away. Coleman admitted only that he “unlawfully and knowingly assembled, produced, or manufactured two destructive devices.”
The relatively light resolution is particularly notable given the broader wave of threats and attacks directed at immigration officers that New Conservative Post has documented during President Donald Trump’s renewed immigration crackdown.
In July 2025, NCP reported on two separate attacks on federal immigration facilities in Texas within a matter of days. A police officer was shot outside the Prairieland Detention Center near Fort Worth, while a gunman armed with a rifle and tactical equipment later opened fire on a Border Patrol facility in McAllen.
The Prairieland case ultimately produced extraordinarily severe sentences. As NCP reported in June, federal judges sentenced alleged ringleader Benjamin Song to 100 years in prison, while several co-defendants received terms ranging from 30 to 70 years. Prosecutors characterized that assault as an organized attack on federal property in which a responding police lieutenant was shot.
Earlier in the year, an ICE agent was struck by a vehicle during an attempted arrest in New Jersey and threats against agents elsewhere as confrontations over Trump’s immigration enforcement policies have increasingly moved beyond protests and political arguments.
Coleman’s Oregon case never reached that point, luckily. Authorities intervened before any alleged attack was carried out, and he had no previous criminal convictions in Oregon.
The case is another example of how far the anti-ICE left has moved beyond protest and into threats, intimidation and preparations for violence. A prosecution involving alleged Molotov cocktails, an AR-style rifle, surveillance of federal officers and talk of beheadings—what prosecutors believed was Oregon’s first case under its domestic-terrorism law—ended with just two destructive-device convictions, 75 days in jail and three years of probation.
[READ MORE: Oscar-Nominated Filmmaker Celebrates Banker Stabbing]
