On February 18, 2026, a federal grand jury in Lafayette returned two indictments against Carter Miles Ledoux, a 19-year-old Lake Charles resident. Indictment charges reported for stalking, threatening, and “swatting” a minor and her family after the girl made a social media post that indicated support for interracial relationships, and for conspiring with members of his Nihilistic Violent Extremist (“NVE”) group to do the same.
NVE groups engage is criminal conduct with a hatred of society and desire to bring about its collapse by chaos, destruction and social instability, and a subset of NVE individuals and groups focus on racially motivated violence.
Ledoux targeted a minor girl in response to her posting in support of interracial relationships by (1) finding the contact and location information for the minor girl and her parents, (2) using anonymizing internet services to send threatening text messages to the girl’s family, (3) using those same anonymizing internet services to “swat” her family’s home by placing a hoax phone call to law enforcement claiming, among other things, that the caller supposedly located at the minor girl’s home had pipe bombs and would kill any officer who responded to the call, and (4) making publicly available social media posts glorifying the attack.
After Ledoux’s arrest, a search of his smartphone revealed child sexual abuse materials that included depictions of the sexual abuse of toddlers, which he was separately indicted for.
“NVE groups are a serious threat to our communities—rural and urban alike—and prey upon our most vulnerable people—particularly young girls—to commit their evil acts,” said United States Attorney Zachary A. Keller. “Stamping out these groups lies at the heart of the Department of Justice’s commitment to make our communities safe, and our Office looks forward to achieving justice for the victim in this case and to showing those who would perpetrate similar acts that the only place in society for them is behind bars.”
“The FBI will not abide threats to children,” said Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Tapp of the FBI's New Orleans Field Office. “Nihilistic Violent Extremists terrorize families every day and those perpetrators should know that we are working diligently with our partners to find, investigate, and prosecute them.”
For more information visit, www.justice.gov/usao-wdla.
