How a Nebraska man became the alleged architect of a plot to kill President Trump

The 31-year-old Omahan made connections on TikTok, where he chatted with other users about holding local governments accountable for ICE operations, filing public records requests and, most recently, “building a people-owned supply chain” to eliminate economic dependence on big corporations.

But in private messages reviewed by the Flatwater Free Press, Alvarez — now facing federal charges for his alleged role in a plot to kill the president — hinted that he was preparing for violence, worrying his online friends who found them increasingly troubling and Alvarez himself increasingly untethered.

On Jan. 24, Alvarez sent a message to a woman he had chatted with for nearly a year.

“We are survivalists. And soldiers 2nd if this wish to be,” he wrote in the message viewed by the Flatwater Free Press. “For that we don’t talk. We act ...  When the fight comes we will know what to do.”

Four days later, another: “And lastly if I have been unclear before it has been intentional. There’s a lot of big projects in the works. Some aren’t ready to be disclosed.”

Now the Nebraska man stands accused of being the “mastermind” behind an alleged plot to attack the June 14 UFC event at the White House and assassinate President Donald Trump.

Prosecutors allege in messages shared on the encrypted messaging app Signal, Alvarez identified posts near the White House for snipers and explosive-laden drone launches, intent on targeting Trump and others.

At a court hearing on June 29, Alvarez’s attorney, Stu Dornan, argued that Alvarez tried to cancel the attack two days before it was scheduled to occur and never bought a ticket to travel there. FBI Special Agent Seena Ali Soheilian said Alvarez sought to reschedule the attack only after one alleged co-conspirator was arrested and two others encountered car trouble.

Charging documents indicate the group had grievances about government corruption, the Epstein files and data centers.

The FBI arrested Alvarez at his Omaha apartment June 14 as he was returning from the pool with his wife, Soheilian said. Federal agents who searched his home found a drone, a shotgun, 50 shells and a flamethrower, Soheilian said.

“The reason the disaster didn’t happen is because the FBI was able to stop it,” said Don Kleine of the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Those who knew Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez are left to wonder how a man who graduated from the University of Nebraska at Kearney six years ago and who had no prior criminal record could now find himself facing a long federal prison sentence.

“Very surprised,” said Ron Bubak, who coached Alvarez in junior high basketball in Cozad, where Alvarez grew up. “That’s not the kid I knew.”

A Nebraska-based terrorism expert who has studied how extremist groups radicalize online said there is no formula predicting what would drive anyone to tip from activism into alleged violence.

But Ares Boira Lopez, a researcher at the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center, said radicalization often includes shared grievances, unmet social or emotional needs and lack of identity or purpose in daily life.

“We don’t have enough information (in this case), but it is … actually not uncommon for people to say, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t have expected it — they seemed like a normal person,’” she said. “That can happen.”

A Flatwater Free Press dive into Alvarez’s past does offer evidence of how a man who until recently seemed to be living a routine life could find himself in shackles last week, seated before a federal judge.

****

Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez’s Nebraska roots reach into the central part of the state.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, the native of Mexico first came to the United States in 2001 as a 6-year-old on a visitor visa and then illegally remained in the country after it expired.

He ultimately settled with his family in Cozad. Dawson County has been a magnet for immigrant families since the former Tyson meatpacking plant opened in nearby Lexington in the 1980s.

Alvarez later gained legal status under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which granted lawful immigration standing to undocumented children brought to the United States.

Known as Abraham Hermosillo, he graduated in 2014 from Cozad High School, where he ran cross country and track.

“He was always a quiet kid,” said Bubak, who taught and coached in Cozad for 26 years. “In all the interactions I had with him, he was a good kid.”

One Cozad classmate, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Alvarez appeared to blossom after he enrolled in 2014 at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.

At UNK, Alvarez was inducted into a national honor society for college freshmen. He was active in a fraternity and selected as a student government representative. He also served as a student diplomat in the school’s admissions department, giving campus tours to prospective students.

Alvarez majored in industrial distribution. The program is known for its rigorous requirements, including classes in electricity and electronics as well as finance and accounting.

In 2016, Alvarez was featured in a campus Facebook post where he spoke of struggling with epilepsy as a child, which he said made it difficult to learn and play sports.

“A lot of people assumed that I would never go to college or amount to anything, but after all the hard work and dedication, it paid off,” the then-UNK junior was quoted. “My advice to kids is to …chase your dreams and never give up.”

But there are also indications Alvarez’s path at Kearney was not completely smooth.

He did not graduate in 2018 with his entering class, instead earning his degree in July 2020. The degree he was awarded was in industrial technology, more general than his industrial distribution major.

Four professors from his department either declined to talk to Flatwater or did not respond to messages. A UNK spokesman confirmed Alvarez’s graduation but declined to comment further, citing student privacy.

Alvarez’s LinkedIn profile suggests that, after graduation, he worked as a supply chain specialist for a Kearney hospital until March 2022. It then appears he went into business for himself. In 2020, he co-founded a photography and videography production company in Grand Island.

By 2024, Alvarez was living in an apartment in Omaha near 120th and West Dodge. He got married that same year. In a phone call with Flatwater, his wife declined to talk, asking that her family’s privacy be respected.

Records indicate Alvarez for a time owned a downtown Grand Island property that housed a dress shop and a fixer-upper home in east Omaha. Records also show that three years ago, he made an unusual property purchase.

In July 2023, Alvarez bought a former United Methodist church building in Western, a town of 200 in southeast Nebraska’s Saline County.

The previous owner said the century-old brick structure had been used as storage for decades when a real estate agent inquired, saying his client wanted to convert it into a home. Records show Alvarez purchased the old church for $5,000.

There is no indication Alvarez ever rehabilitated the church property or lived there. But it would come into play in the alleged plot.

****

To his online friends, Alvarez was known as “unitedworldwide444,” “Fortress” or “resilience-spirit-of-the-west.”

Members of an online group on the app Discord, a communications platform popular among gamers, didn’t know his real name until he was arrested, according to logs viewed by Flatwater.

But some members of the group also indicated they weren’t surprised.

“(He) wanted to use your network to dismantle and overthrow the epstein class and murder multiple high influence targets. He got mad when I expressed caution and told (moderators),” one woman who had chatted with him wrote on Discord.

That woman, 27-year-old Margaret, spoke with Flatwater on condition her full name not be used.

Margaret said she had chatted with Alvarez for nearly a year before cutting off contact in January when his rhetoric intensified.

She first met Alvarez through TikTok, where they monitored ICE activity and gravitated toward survivalist content — videos that taught viewers things like how to build an emergency generator, Margaret said.

On TikTok, many of Alvarez’s posts focused on a plan to form a new supply chain outside of traditional channels, an idea harkening back to his college studies.

He kept in touch with TikTok companions on Discord. It was on that platform where he began to trouble some of them, Margaret said.

In one November message, Alvarez told her the sun “is looking funny” and predicted “major blackouts” for Puerto Rico and Cuba. In another, he said “things are getting bad” in the United States, predicting that the “cracks will begin around” January.

Then came the messages about the upcoming “fight” and the “big projects” that were in the works.

In the indictment, federal law enforcement officials laid out what one such project may have been: the planned June 14 White House attack.

Federal prosecutors allege Alvarez was the man under the username “Shepherd” who served as the plan’s architect, conspiring with 18 others, seven of whom are now also facing charges.

“This is the best action I see. Position your teams in the purple dots (counter sniper and drones) Long range (circled area) (great shot) Easy out into the river,” Shepherd wrote June 10 on Signal, according to an FBI affidavit.

The next day, Shepherd allegedly shared with the group a screenshot that listed potential targets. They included “1,” who the FBI said it believes was likely Trump; “VP,” allegedly Vice President JD Vance; “N,” allegedly Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; and “Musk,” referring to Elon Musk.

Shepherd allegedly told another member during a discussion on drones that he wanted “as many and as deadly as we can get.” Shepherd also instructed the other members who were part of the planned attack to take back roads or the Potomac River down to the “pick up location.”

The complaint says Shepherd also provided a photograph of the church that Alvarez owned in Western as a “safe zone” where the conspirators would meet afterward.

At the June 29 hearing, Soheilian, the FBI agent, said Alvarez had cast the Signal group as one focused on building off-the-grid homesteads. Alvarez nodded as the agent testified.

But the agent also testified about the sniper perches, escape routes and the church.

Alvarez met with a co-defendant, a Missouri man, in Omaha on June 12, Soheilian said. Alvarez gave him a 3D printer and $1,200 cash in exchange for the shotgun that agents found at Alvarez’s home, the agent said. Soheilian accused the Omaha man of mailing ballistic plates and two-way talk radios to others.

On Signal, Alvarez said the drones should be outfitted with explosives strong enough to pierce police body armor, Soheilian testified, while Alvarez shook his head “no.”

As agents confronted Alvarez with his own chat logs, Soheilian testified, Alvarez had acknowledged: “It doesn’t look good.”

After Monday’s hearing, Dornan, his attorney, told reporters Alvarez has “never been convicted of anything.”

“He’s got a good job,” he said. “He’s married. His wife and family members are supportive of him. So that shows a lot about his character, in my opinion.”"

Alvarez faces two federal felony counts, including a murder conspiracy charge carrying a possible life sentence.

Alvarez also faces deportation. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials last week put an immigration hold on him.

For those who knew Alvarez, perhaps as jarring as the charges was his mug shot taken after his arrest: The bearded man with thick hair is smiling broadly in his orange jail garb.

He wore the same beard, similar garb and metal shackles when he walked into a federal courtroom Monday morning in Lincoln and sat next to his attorney. He was no longer smiling.