Federal prosecutors say a Trump supporter made up a story about left-wing extremists burning down his garage.
They said Dennis Molla, of Minnesota, set his own garage on fire after scrawling "Biden 2020" on it with graffiti.
According to an indictment reviewed by Insider, Molla wanted to cheat insurers by saying he had been targeted.
He described how he was shocked to discover that his home had been attacked.
On September 23, 2020, Molla told CBS Minnesota that he woke up to a loud boom or bang and saw three people run away.
According to the police report, the garage, car, and three other cars were on fire.
He told CBS that he had flown "Trump 2020" flags at the property. According to court documents, he referred to it as a hate crime in his insurance claim.
He told the Star-Tribune that it was crazy to think that it came down to this.
In his indictment, prosecutors said that he started his own property on fire, sprayed graffiti on his own property, and there were no unknown males near his home.
He was accused of wire fraud for his insurance claims.
He made hundreds of thousands of dollars in insurance claims. The company paid out over $60,000 after rejecting some.
According to the document, Molla said she would report the insurance company to authorities.
The indictment stated that he took $17,000 in donations. Here is the first and the second one. They both have a message of thanks from the same person.
At the height of the 2020 presidential campaign, conservative media focused on issues of left wing violence.
Fox News, CBS News, and The New York Post all played it.
Laura Ingraham, host of Fox News, spoke the day after the alleged attack and said the matter was over.
"This is a message being sent by the far left, and I think people are starting to see that the behavior of the far left is not off the table."
"If this were right-wingers performing this kind of violence, Joe Biden would be out there on the front lines proclaiming that right-wing ideology was innately linked to violence and cruelty," she said.
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