Aryan Republican Army

Members of the Aryan Republican Army were responsible for a series of 22 bank robberies in the American Midwest. They reportedly targeted banks in the Midwest due to their belief that the security measures which were taken there would be less thorough. The group often left fake explosive devices at the banks which they robbed in order to divert law enforcement officials who could potentially chase them. Known members of the ARA include Langan, Guthrie, Michael William Brescia, Mark William Thomas, Shawn Kenny, Kevin McCarthy, and Scott Stedeford. Subsequent to their arrest, Guthrie, Langan, McCarthy and Thomas became witnesses for the prosecution. Guthrie was found hanged while in custody, a day before he was to give a television interview about an alleged cover-up which was related to the death of Kenneth Michael Trentadue, who was also found hanged while he was in custody. Otherwise, all of the gang's members received prison sentences of varying lengths, on an array of state and/or federal charges. ==Connections to the Oklahoma City bombing==

Several accounts have linked the ARA with Timothy McVeigh, convicted of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 and injured hundreds more. Brescia and Guthrie both resided for a time at Elohim City, Oklahoma, a private community made up of followers of Christian Identity pastor Robert G. Millar (d. 2001), and other people associated with right-wing extremist and white nationalist views. Other ARA members were also known to frequent Elohim City. Elohim City security director Andreas Strassmeir was a known associate of Timothy McVeigh, having met him at a Tulsa gun show, and federal investigators determined that McVeigh had made a phone call to Elohim City on April 5, 1995, just two weeks prior to the Oklahoma City bombing. However, no one at Elohim City claims to have spoken with him. Additionally, five women from a nightclub in Tulsa have each identified Brescia as the man who was paying for McVeigh's drinks on April 8, 1995, just three days after McVeigh's suspicious phone call. Two more women in Kansas reported that McVeigh and Brescia were frequent associates, while Guthrie bore a distinct physical resemblance to "John Doe Number Two". McVeigh's sister, Jennifer, also claimed that he had been one of the participants in several, unspecified bank robberies. David Paul Hammer, a convicted murderer who was imprisoned with McVeigh at the United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute, has alleged that McVeigh told him details of the Oklahoma City bombing that contradict the account related in court. According to Hammer, McVeigh claimed to have been working as a deep cover operative for the US Department of Defense, having infiltrated ARA and participated in several of the group's bank robberies. McVeigh is further alleged to have indicated Strassmeir and several others at Elohim City were similarly government agents involved in surveillance of extremist elements of the American far-right. ==Amtrak Sunset Limited==

The AYA were reportedly suspects in the professional 1995 sabotage and derailment of the Amtrak Sunset limited, injuring 78 people and killing one. Files from the major case investigation, dubbed SPLITRAIL by the FBI, remain classified as of 2025. In the course of the investigation, the FBI conducted interviews with associates of McVeigh from his time living in Kingman and AYA associates from their time attempting to rob banks in Phoenix. As AYA members were largely prosecuted, dead, or in prison in the two years after the derailment, it may have been more expedient to have had the derailment case go unsolved, which simultaneously reassigned multiple agents from the OKC investigation. Per journalist Mark Hamm, the AYA had discussed plots to derail trains. ==Donna Langan==

Langan was born Peter Kevin Langan in 1958 on Saipan in the South Pacific Islands. She grew up in Vietnam, where her father served in the military and the CIA, before they moved to the United States when Langan was 6 years old. At the start of the second Trump administration in early 2025, she was notified of her impending transfer to a men's facility. ==Other members and associates==

Richard Lee Guthrie Jr. Nicknamed "Wild Bill", Richard Lee Guthrie Jr. grew up within blocks of Langan in Wheaton, Maryland, although they didn't become close until years later. After getting kicked out of the Navy in 1983 for painting a swastika on the side of a ship and threatening superiors, Guthrie attended gatherings of Aryan Nations and traveled the country distributing Christian Identity propaganda. Guthrie pled guilty in 1996 to three bank robberies in Ohio, and to 16 more in seven states, as well as to weapons charges and credit card fraud. Following a plea agreement, he was to provide authorities with information about terrorist organizations similar to the Aryan Republican Army. On July 12 of that same year, prison officials found Guthrie hanging in his cell, an apparent suicide. Michael William Brescia A resident of Elohim City and a former student at LaSalle University in Philadelphia, Michael William Brescia was recruited for the ARA by Aryan Nations Pennsylvania state leader, Mark W. Thomas. Brescia was named in a lawsuit filed by the grandparents of a victim of the bombing as being "John Doe 2" seen with McVeigh in the days prior to the bombing. A female friend of McVeigh also identified Brescia as a friend of McVeigh's then known only as "Mike". Shawn Kenny A 1991 Oak Hills High School graduate and one-time Aryan Nations member from Cincinnati, Shawn Kenny already had a racist background prior to being befriended by Langan at a law seminar. Kenny, himself, says he had discussed recruiting robbers with Thomas in 1994. Despite his criminal history and alleged relationship with Timothy McVeigh, he joined the U.S. Army sometime after the ARA was dissolved and an investigation into the Oklahoma City bombing had taken place. During this time, he was also the founding member and frontman of the RAC band, Day of the Sword. Guthrie says to have met Stedeford through Berks County right-wing leader, Mark Thomas. Mark William Thomas A member of both Aryan Nations and Ku Klux Klan, Thomas was ordained an Identity Minister during a stay at Aryan Nations' Idaho headquarters in 1990. After being indicted in January 1997, Thomas told reporters that at least one gang member was involved in the Oklahoma bombing, according to a newspaper clip in FBI files. Kevin McCarthy A native Pennsylvanian, Kevin "Blondie" McCarthy spent his adolescence experimenting with drugs before eventually becoming a resident of the Elohim City compound in the fall of 1994. McCarthy was also the bass player for Stedeford's group, Day of the Sword. Chevie Kehoe A fellow white supremacist and resident of the Elohim City compound, Chevie Kehoe was contracted by the Aryan Republican Army to assassinate the Mueller family. The Mueller family were brief residents of Elohim City that had been privy to information dealing with the alleged connection of the Aryan Republican Army to the Oklahoma City bombing. Prior to murdering the Mueller family (with his accomplice Daniel Lewis Lee), Chevie had sold guns to the ARA. Dennis Mahon While his exact connection to the Aryan Republican Army has not been revealed, white supremacist Dennis Mahon is known to have been a close friend of members of the group during his stay at Elohim City. A handful of videos were produced in which Dennis Mahon is recorded while he is engaging in paramilitary training alongside Andreas Strassmeir and Carol Howe, as well as a few other individuals which have not been identified. The unidentified militants who appear in the footage may be some members of the Aryan Republican Army, since they lived at Elohim City around the time when the video was recorded. In addition to this, the anonymous persons are seen wearing balaclavas in some videos, while in others, they either sport camouflage face paint or they cannot be seen in detail because they are simply too far away from the camera. ==Sentences==

In 2010, the Aryan Republican Army was the subject of episode 82 of the television series Gangland. ==Notes==