Tennessee Man Sentenced to Over 17 Years in Prison for Arson and Attempting to Provide Material Support to Foreign Terrorist Organization

Regan Darby Prater, 28, of Tullahoma, Tennessee, was sentenced yesterday to 210 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and to pay $1,289,000 in restitution for arson and attempted provision of material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Prater pleaded guilty to these charges in April 2026.

Court documents established that Prater used a so-called "sparkler bomb," i.e., a napalm-based incendiary device ignited by a common sparkler, to destroy facilities maintained by the Highlander Center, a nonprofit research and education center in New Market, Tennessee. As part of his guilty plea, Prater admitted that he drove from his home in Tullahoma to the Highlander Center, ignited the sparkler bomb, and destroyed a building, ultimately causing over $1.2 million in damage.

Before he detonated the bomb, Prater spray-painted the symbol of the Iron Guard, a 1930s-era paramilitary arm of the Romanian Nazi Party, in the Highlander Center parking lot. This same symbol was engraved on the rifle used in the terrorist attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand, just two weeks prior to the arson. Prater acknowledged that he committed the arson at the Highlander Center due to his white-supremacist ideology and as a response to the Highlander Center's faith-based educational priorities and its association with the Civil Rights Movement.

Prater also admitted that, in 2019, he attempted to provide material support to Hizballah, also known as "Hezbollah," which the United States has recognized as a Foreign Terrorist Organization since 1997. Specifically, Prater obtained a document purporting to contain personally identifiable information of over 35,000 individuals purportedly affiliated with the government of Israel. He provided that document to an individual he believed to be associated with Hizballah, stating, among other things: "Start the hunt."

The case was investigated by the FBI Nashville Field Office with assistance from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Casey T. Arrowood and Kyle J. Wilson for the Eastern District of Tennessee prosecuted the case with assistance from Trial Attorney Katherine McCallister of the Civil Rights Division and Trial Attorney Justin Sher of the National Security Division's Counterterrorism Section.