A federal grand jury in Sacramento indicted Christopher M. Perry, 38, of Rocklin, California, on Thursday for possessing firearms as a convicted felon and for destroying records in a federal investigation. Perry came to the FBI’s attention through the investigation into the plot to fly explosive-laden drones at the UFC Freedom 250 event on the White House South Lawn on June 14, and prosecutors say he took part in the Signal chat group where the attack was planned.

He is not charged with the plot. The two counts in Thursday’s indictment are a gun charge and an obstruction charge, and neither mentions a drone. Since the first arrests on June 16, I have tracked one question through every filing in this case: whether anyone involved ever built the explosive drones the plan depended on. Perry’s indictment adds a sixth federal district to the docket and leaves that question exactly where it was.

Perry is in federal custody and is scheduled for arraignment on August 31 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Sean C. Riordan. The charges are allegations, and he is presumed innocent.

Prosecutors Charged Perry With Guns And Deleted Data, Not The Conspiracy

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California charged Perry with being a felon in possession of a firearm, up to 15 years, and destroying records in a federal investigation, up to 20 years. Neither count alleges he conspired to attack the White House event.

The Justice Department’s release says FBI agents contacted Perry at his home on June 12, two days before the UFC card, and asked about his Signal account. After they left, prosecutors allege, he removed himself from the chat group, deleted his Signal account, and wiped the app and its data from his phone. That sequence is the entire basis of the records-destruction count.

Search warrants that followed turned up multiple firearms Perry owned and more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition. On one ammunition container someone had written “WWIII.” His phone held pictures and videos of guns, including Perry holding them. U.S. Attorney Eric Grant’s office says Perry had described himself in the chats as a career criminal and said he was armed. His prior felonies include attempting to bring drugs into a jail or prison and possessing or purchasing drugs for sale, which is what makes the gun possession a federal crime on its own.

Jail records reviewed by KCRA show Perry was booked into the Sacramento County Main Jail on August 17 and is not eligible for bail. The criminal complaint that preceded the indictment was filed August 7.

The Signal Logs Put Perry Inside The Planning Chats

The criminal complaint, as reported by KCRA, alleges Perry joined a Signal group called “Lions den” under the username “Chrisp87.” The FBI found the account on the phone of one of the eight men already indicted for the plot. Perry allegedly voiced support for the attack and offered tactical advice.

According to the complaint, Perry told the group it “should have decoys and distractions.” He also allegedly wrote that he preferred nonviolence himself but was all in if the situation called for it. He is accused of communicating directly with Abraham H. Alvarez of Omaha, Nebraska, the alleged planner I described in June as the man who told the group he had one drone and was working on more.

When agents knocked on June 12, Perry denied knowing about or belonging to any online group planning an attack at the White House, according to the complaint. He admitted using Signal but would not say whether Chrisp87 was his. Within the hour, prosecutors say, the app was gone. That is the obstruction count in a sentence: a denial, then a deletion.

Perry’s Alleged Target List Ran To Data Centers And Satellite Ground Stations

The Justice Department says Perry also discussed attacks in California against AI data centers, satellite communication facilities, and a California-based technology company. Per KCRA, the complaint names a second chat, “Sauron Eye,” where members discussed data centers in Santa Clara, Sacramento, and outside San Francisco.

Alvarez allegedly added Perry to that chat. A further set of targets named in it, according to the complaint, included “Internet Exchange Points” and “Satellite Ground Stations.”

Perry allegedly expressed interest but wrote that he did not have anyone he trusted enough to do it with. The complaint describes discussion, not preparation, on the California targets. No filing I have seen describes a device, a date, or a reconnaissance trip for any of them.

The infrastructure angle is not new to this case. The eight-man indictment returned in Columbus on July 9 lists drones and explosives among the material support the defendants allegedly agreed to provide, and the criminal complaints I read in June already had members floating power grids as secondary targets. What Perry’s chats add is a California map: data centers and satellite ground stations rather than substations.

The Eight-Man Indictment Already Moved The Case Past Criminal Complaints

On July 9, a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Ohio indicted eight men on two conspiracies: providing material support to terrorists, and murder on federal territory and of a federal official. That indictment replaced the June criminal complaints. Perry is not among the eight.

The eight are Alvarez, Daniel K. Eskridge, William L. S. Falkner, Tycen J. Proper, Jordan W. Rincker, Bryan O. Roa, Chandler D. Scaggs, and Michael A. Thomas. Scaggs, 21, of Chapmanville, West Virginia, was the last arrested, in early July; prosecutors say he was assigned as a sniper and kept trying to arrange a ride to Washington after Proper’s arrest cut the group’s original plan. The material support count carries up to 15 years, the murder conspiracy up to life.

He is charged separately, in a different district, for conduct the plot investigation happened to surface. The Justice Department’s own headline calls him “implicated” in the plot, a word that does the work of connecting him to it without alleging he was part of the conspiracy. FOX40 reported that other people found during the investigation, including an Elk Grove TikTok user, have also been charged with unrelated crimes. The dragnet keeps producing cases. The conspiracy roster has not grown since July.

DroneXL’s Take

I wrote in June, after reading the complaints, that the drone side of this plot existed mostly on paper: one aircraft, a $1,300 group buy, and a plan for fifteen operators the group never fielded. I said the load-bearing question for any drone-specific charge was whether the explosive drones were ever built, and that this was the detail to track as the case moved to indictment. Two indictments later, I am still tracking it. The July 9 indictment lists drones among the material support the eight allegedly agreed to provide. Perry’s indictment does not mention a drone at all. Neither Justice Department release describes a completed device, a test, or a payload.

So the pattern holds. The firearms in this case keep being real. Agents pulled rifles, handguns, and thousands of rounds from the homes of the original five, and now more than 2,000 rounds and multiple guns from a felon in Rocklin who had no legal right to any of them. The drones keep being a plan.

My read is that Perry’s charging decision tells you how prosecutors see him: a felon with guns who lied to the FBI and wiped his phone, sitting in a chat room where other men planned something worse. That is 35 years of exposure on paper. It is not the crime the headlines are about. If the government believed it could prove Perry agreed to the attack, the conspiracy count was available and it did not bring it.

The fair concession is that the conspiracy case against the eight explicitly names drones, and a jury may find that a group with one aircraft, a budget, and a stated intent to arm it had done enough. Material support does not require a working weapon. But the public argument since June has been that a weaponized-drone attack nearly happened on the South Lawn, and every filing so far describes guns that existed and drones that were going to. I covered the Nashville substation plot in 2024, where undercover FBI agents worked alongside the suspect for months and arrested him as he powered up the drone at the substation, and the Secret Service counter-drone deployment on the National Mall two weeks after these arrests. In both, and here, the thing that found the threat was a person: a tip, an informant, a seized phone with a Signal account on it. Not a sensor.

That matters because the FEMA counter-drone money and the new state and local takedown authority are being justified in part by this case. I don’t object to either on its merits. I object to a plot whose drones never flew being cited as if they had. The arraignment on August 31 will not settle the drone question; it is a gun case. Watch the Southern District of Ohio docket instead. If the government has a built explosive drone from any of these men, the trial is where it will have to show it, and I will report the day it does.

Sources: U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of California; U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs; KCRA 3; FOX40.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.