Thursday, July 10, 2025 - The Pennsylvania man charged with fat@lly shooting then behe@ding his father and posting it on YouTube said on the stand Wednesday, July 9, that the k!lling was “Plan B” after trying to arrest his father for what he called false statements and treason.
Justin D. Mohn, 33, took the stand in a suburban
Philadelphia courtroom on the third day of his trial on murd£r and other
charges stemming from the Jan. 30, 2024, homicide of his father, Michael F.
Mohn.
Mohn, with his arms shackled to his waist, spoke clearly
without any apparent emotion for more than two hours of direct testimony and
cross examination.
Responding to questions from his attorney, Steven Jones,
Mohn said he shot his father in the bathroom of the family's Levittown home
after telling him he was going to arrest him. Mohn said his father, who he said
was an experienced martial artist, told him he would k!ll him before he let
that happen and reached for the gun.
“Unfortunately, he resisted,” Justin Mohn said, adding: “I
was hoping to perform a citizen’s arrest on my father for, ultimately,
treason."
He described a list from his notebook, shown during the
trial, that had the lines “Boom” and “Slice” as his “Plan B,” and said he
expected his father to go along with the citizen's arrest.
He said he differed politically from his parents, describing
them as on the left. He told the court he believed his father wanted to stop
him from becoming a politician similar to President Donald Trump and that his
father gave false statements in an unrelated civil case Justin Mohn brought in
federal court.
Asked why he beheaded his father, he said he wanted to send
a message to federal government workers to meet his demands, which included
their resignation as well as the cancellation of public debt, among other
things. He said he didn't do it out of hatred for his father or to cause trauma
to his family.
His mother, Denice Mohn, cried in court at the end of the
direct questioning from his attorney.
“I knew something such as a severed head would not only go
viral but could lessen the violence,” Justin Mohn said.
Prosecutors said Mohn shot his father with a newly purchased
pistol, then dec@pitated him with a kitchen knife and machete. The 14-minute
YouTube video he posted was live for several hours before it was removed.
He was arrested later that day after scaling a fence at Fort
Indiantown Gap, the state’s National Guard headquarters.
He said in court he knew it was wrong to jump the fence at the site.
Prosecutors said he called for others to join him in attempting to overthrow
the U.S. government.
Mohn had a USB device containing photos of federal buildings and apparent
instructions for making explosives when he was arrested, authorities
said.
He also expressed violent anti-government rhetoric in writings he
published online, going back several years.
Earlier in the trial, the judge heard from Justin Mohn’s mother, who said
police came to the house he shared with his parents and warned him about his
online postings before the k!lling.
Denice Mohn testified that she and her husband had been offering financial
support and guidance as Justin Mohn looked for a job.
Prosecutors described the homicide as “something straight out of a horror
film.”
They said Justin Mohn k!lled his father — who had been an engineer with
the geoenvironmental section of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Philadelphia
District — to intimidate federal workers, calling it a “cold, calculated,
organized plan.”
The YouTube video included rants about the government, immigration and the
border, fiscal policy, urban crime and the war in Ukraine.
In court, Michael Mohn was remembered as a good neighbor and supportive
father.
In the video posted on YouTube, Justin Mohn described his father as a
20-year federal employee and called him a traitor.
During a competency hearing last year, a defense expert said Mohn wrote a
letter to Russia’s ambassador to the United States seeking to strike a deal to
give Mohn refuge and apologizing to President Vladimir Putin for claiming to be
the czar of Russia. The judge ruled Mohn was competent to stand trial.
Evidence presented at the trial included graphic photos and the video
posted to YouTube. The judge warned members of the public at the trial about
the images and said they could leave before the photos were shown.
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