Pa. man who blamed ‘wokeness’ for troubles says he beheaded dad to spur a revolution

DOYLESTOWN — A 33-year-old Pennsylvania man told a county judge Wednesday he tried to arrest his father for committing treason, fatally shot him in self-defense, and later beheaded him for “practicality” reasons to rally a revolution against the federal government.

Testifying in his own defense, Justin Mohn, of Levittown, went on to spout numerous conspiracy theories to support his belief that he was legally justified in arresting and killing his father.

Mohn answered questions from his attorneys and Bucks County prosecutor Ed Louka directly and succinctly, although he pushed back when Louka characterized the killing as “murder.”

Bucks County Judge Stephen Corr allowed Mohn to deliver his own opening statement Wednesday afternoon after prosecutors rested their case.

Mohn stood at the defense table, flanked by court-appointed attorneys Steven Jones and William Craig Penglase, and read a handwritten statement during which he blamed the “radical left,” woke politics and D.E.I. policies for his own victimization as a straight, white, educated Christian man. He said he feared the country would descend into a “Godless, socialist country.”

All of America is on trial in this case,” Mohn said.

He said he had no choice but to try to arrest his father, Michael Mohn, to unravel the conspiracy because he lost a lawsuit he filed against the United States in 2023.

“Unfortunately, he resisted,” Mohn said.

Corr reiterated that he previously found Mohn mentally competent to stand trial, and through his own observations at trial, said he saw Mohn interacting with his attorneys and contributing to his defense.

Defense expert John Markey, a forensic psychologist who testified at Mohn’s competency proceedings last year, determined at that time Mohn had a delusional disorder.

Mental competency to stand trial in Pennsylvania does not necessarily hinge on mental illness. It requires a defendant to be aware of the charges against them and be able to contribute to their own defense, which Corr said he saw Mohn do.

Mohn also said he did not wish to use a mental health defense.

Mohn testified he felt at odds with his parents because they were liberals he accused of prioritizing politics over family who thought he was a member of the “oppressive, patriarchal” class.

Despite this, he said he had a normal upbringing and a healthy relationship with his parents.

“She was just filled with pride of all of us,” Mohn said of his mother, Denice — while she lowered her head in the gallery. “She was a loving mother.”

After college, Mohn moved to Colorado and worked a series of jobs, none for longer than a year. During this time, he claimed he was unlawfully fired numerous times for being a “straight white male” and testified his employers conspired in a “labor racket” to disenfranchise him from a job and render him homeless and eventually incarcerated.

He was awarded a $10,000 payout in a wrongful termination lawsuit against one of the companies he worked for, but subsequent lawsuits were dismissed.

Mohn later blamed his father for breaking the brakes on his car during an unexpected visit where his parents asked him to move home.

At the same time, federal agents visited him, warning him he might be arrested for messages he had posted online.

Mohn testified the day after he filed a racketeering complaint with the FBI, former Ohio Gov. John Kasich withdrew from the 2016 presidential election, which he said was proof there was more at play in the “deep state.”

Denice Mohn testified on Monday that Justin had not been the same since he moved to Colorado, and that she was worried he had suffered an emotional breakdown.

Mohn said he moved home to Levittown in July 2019. By this point, he was in thousands of dollars of debt and had not held a full-time job for months, he said.

Mohn sued the federal government, alleging the government had failed its moral duty to him when it allowed him to take out student loans for his education but failed to side with him in his employment discrimination lawsuits, which prevented him from holding a job and paying back his debt.

Mohn said he believed his father went behind his back to the court, told “them” Mohn’s employment problems were his own fault and that he was mentally ill just like Donald Trump.

“He knew of my political aspirations,” Mohn said, explaining he wanted to become financially independent and run for office.

Mohn said his father broke the law by making a “false statement” to the court and that it was an act of treason against his country that needed to be met with a citizen’s arrest.

When Michael Mohn went into his bathroom on Jan. 30, 2024, Justin Mohn followed him in with a Sig Sauer P320 9mm pistol in his hoodie pocket.

Mohn hoped to detain his father, he said, and escort him to the Middletown Township Police Department where he thought he could be interrogated for more information on the deep state conspiracy against him.

“I’m performing a citizen’s arrest for the felony of treason,” Mohn told his father.

“I’ll kill you before I let that happen,” Mohn’s father said in reply, Mohn testified.

Mohn racked the slide of the 9mm handgun to chamber a bullet and leveled the gun at his father’s back, he testified. Michael Mohn looked up into the mirror in front of him and saw the gun, Justin Mohn testified.

In the courtroom gallery, Denice Mohn — who testified against her son earlier that week — silently buried her face into a white tissue paper.

Mohn said he tried to repeat himself, but his father spun around and tried to grab the gun with his left hand.

“I pulled the trigger,” Mohn said dispassionately in court. “There was no other way to effect the arrest. He would have taken the gun.”

But once his father was dead, Mohn said there was no other way to unthread the conspiracy against him. So he beheaded his father “for practical reasons” and posed with the head in a 15-minute recorded rant he hoped would spur on a mass killing of federal employees.

“I didn’t do it out of hatred. I had to do it. I knew a severed head would go viral and in the end, result in less violence,” Mohn testified, hoping federal employees would resign as a result of his video and pave the way for him to declare martial law as “President of America.”

He then traveled to the Pennsylvania National Guard base at Fort Indiantown Gap in Lebanon County to see if they would help him.

“Were they interested?” Jones, Mohn’s attorney, asked.

“I didn’t get a chance to ask them,” Mohn said, testifying he jumped the fence into the base and was apprehended. “But I assume not.”

Mohn said he wrote various letters to prominent politicians trying to alert them to his trial, indicating he thought authorities were going to try to paint him as crazy and schizophrenic — like they did to political dissidents in the Soviet Union.

Louka confronted Mohn about prior statements he made to an FBI agent he spoke to while living in Colorado during which Mohn called political violence a non-solution.

“Did you talk to that FBI agent?” Mohn hastily shot back in reply, before he composed himself and answered with a normal cadence that “necessary” and “lawful force” does not count as violence.

After Louka finished his cross-examination, Jones rested the defense’s case. The trial will continue Thursday morning with closing arguments, and Corr could render a verdict immediately after.

Jones previously confirmed the death penalty is off the table, but Mohn is still charged with first-degree murder, a charge that carries a mandatory life sentence.

He also faces two counts of terrorism, theft by unlawful taking and firearms-related offenses.