Introducing Mr. & Mrs. Blackhat: The Nazis in Your Neighborhood

Not every Nazi carves a swastika into the middle of their forehead; in fact, some Nazis may blend in with the rest of the community: they may be your employer, a regular customer who buys his morning coffee at the corner natural health foods store, a parent who frequents the nearby public park with their child, a casual acquaintance, an old roommate, your pot dealer, or even your neighbor. Let us introduce to you: Mr. and Mrs. Blackhat.

Born on November 28, 1978, Matthew Lee Combs is originally from Roseburg, Oregon, and lived in Ashland until about 2013, when he moved up to Eugene and shacked up with his girlfriend. He currently lives with his pregnant girlfriend, Bethany Sherman, and their 1 1/2 year old daughter at 1177 West 11th Avenue in Eugene. Until now, Combs has operated fairly anonymously to the public eye as a neo-Nazi. He serves as Jimmy Marr’s left hand man and Jake Laskey’s right hand man; most notably, Matthew Combs is the American Patriots Brigade (APB) organizer, a support group for the neo-Nazi gang American Front (AF).

Bethany Marie Sherman, Comb’s girlfriend, while not a participant in the Cascadian Coffee Company (CCC) Discord herself, is described within it as sharing Comb’s extremist views, and consistently, materially supporting his work with the CCC members, American Patriots Brigade (APB), and other PNW regional fascists by making Nazi stickers, supplying food, attending neo-Nazi social gatherings, and “red-pilling” other Discord users’ girlfriends, among other things.  As “Mrs. Blackhat,” Bethany runs her own white supremacist Twitter account under the handle @14th_word, with which she participates in private, group fascist chats and retweets her boyfriend’s white supremacist tweets, as well as other racist Twitter accounts.  In her everyday “normie” life, Bethany Sherman is the CEO of OG Analytical, a state accredited cannabis testing company, and maintains a significant presence within prominent cannabis industry and regulation circles in Oregon.

Matthew Lee Combs is pictured above with identifying tattoos that are also visible in a photo he posts of himself in the CCC Discord logs. Together, with the information revealed in the leaked logs and the anonymous tips we have received about him, we have been able to successfully identify him to our community.

He can be found on Twitter where he uses the handle @basedMLC and tweets out neo-Nazi, white nationalist, and derogatory tweets. Until recently, he has been known as “Blackhat16,” but he has since changed his username to  an odal rune symbol. It is common practice for modern day Nazis to use the symbol of an odal rune to replace the somewhat less socially acceptable swastika. Matthew is the Eugene, Oregon organizer for the American Patriots Brigade, an American Front support group. The number “16” in “Blackhat16” is numerology code for the neo-Nazi group American Front (headed by Creswell resident Jake Laskey), where 1=A and 6=F representing AF, or American Front.

Matt Combs joined Jimmy Marr and numerous other neo-Nazis (who are also Cascadian Coffee Company Discord users) on April 24, 2017, in what can only be described as a Holocaust denial demonstration. At the event, which took place in front of Jimmy and Judy Marr’s residence at 1321 G Street in Springfield, Oregon, Matt Combs wears a balaclava and a green flight jacket with American Patriots Brigade and American Front Support 16 patches. He is seen armed with a mini baseball bat and a high powered laser.  Combs feels quite comfortable sieg heiling alongside his other neo-Nazi associates.

What originated as a simple protest against Jimmy Marr’s rampant racism and white supremacy antics drew out Marr’s close circle of neo-Nazi friends. The CCC Discord logs reveal the in depth planning for this action, including who would attend, what they would wear, and how they would be armed and respond to protesters.

The Discord logs reveal the weapons and tactics the participants planned to prep for the occasion including numerous firearms which would be hidden under a tarp behind Jimmy Marr’s porch in addition to various individuals either open or conceal carrying. It has been revealed that neo-Nazi Kendall Stewart, (boyfriend to “Rhiannon Dark”), who was recently arrested again in Eugene, was in attendance with the counter protesters as an infiltrator. The Discord logs also state that Jake Laskey had planned to arrive at Jimmy Marr’s for this event.

In addition to his personal Twitter account, which he uses to spout hate and slurs against non-whites and to organize regionally with other national socialists and neo-Nazis, Matthew Combs runs the @16_Support APB Support 16 Twitter account. This account represents the American Patriots Brigade, the official support group for American Front.

Previous to becoming the Eugene organizer for American Patriots Brigade, Matthew was associated with American Vanguard. But, because there were few members in the PNW chapter of American Vanguard, and their distance from each other prevented them from significant organizing, Matthew chose to ditch that endeavor and found himself a water boy position with American Front, instead.

Matthew Combs has also applied to become a member of the regional white nationalist group True Cascadia, but they rejected his application because he is associated with American Front. Apparently, the trashy crew that runs with American Front and American Patriots Brigade is not the sort of character or image more elite white supremacists are going for. Combs laments about this rejection and complains that his girlfriend Bethany is barred from associating with any of the women involved in True Cascadia because her boyfriend is a member of a neo-Nazi group True Cascadia frowns upon. Read his rejection letter here:

Matthew owns two automatic rifles and a mini 14. He has busied himself locally by taking down antifascist literature and replacing it with Nazi propaganda, largely in the Whiteaker neighborhood. His associations include ties with the Atomwaffen Division in Washington.

Throughout the conversations in the CCC Discord log, Combs acts not only as an organizer for American Patriots Brigade, but he serves as a primary organizing leader for the individuals and groups participating in the server. He aims to bring white nationalists together in the region with the goal of establishing a whites only homeland in the Pacific Northwest.

Matthew Combs is one of a handful of white supremacists active in the CCC Discord that live in the Eugene area. He, along with most of the other users, look up to Jimmy Marr, the elder, as a guiding force in their organizing, activities, and attitudes. Combs regularly joins Jimmy Marr for coffee, travels with him for banner drops and flag waves along highway overpasses, attends monthly white nationalist meetings, plans future endeavors, and frequents his home on social occasions such as a Hitler birthday party BBQ in the backyard of Jimmy and Judy Marr’s home.

The Cascadian Coffee Company Discord logs leak reveals a tremendous amount of information about the participating neo-Nazis and their associates, their organizational mayhem, and activities. Thanks to the conversations in the discord and supplementary incriminating evidence, we have been able to gain further insight into Jake Laskey’s participation in Oregon white supremacy organizing and affiliations. Matthew Combs describes his close knit relationship with Jake Laskey in the discord. He informs us that he is attending Jake’s bachelor party and tells also of his plans to attend Jake Laskey and Amanda Marsh’s “handfasting” (wedding) with his girlfriend Bethany.

Jake Laskey has repeatedly denied any affiliation with American Front despite having their logo tattooed on the back of his head and the endless evidence against his claim. This Discord leak contains additional, clear information that places Laskey as an organizing figure in American Front. Further, Laskey takes a moment out of his wedding celebrations to pose for a photograph with his fellow American Front and American Patriots Brigade members who were in attendance. Matthew Combs is pictured, kneeling in front of the bride and groom, in his green flight jacket.

Similar to the way Combs looks up to Jimmy Marr as an uncle, Combs seems to affectionately refer to Jake Laskey in a brotherly way.

It will undoubtedly come as a big surprise to most of the community that Matthew Combs and Bethany Sherman have embedded themselves in what is generally considered a friendly, left leaning, social justice striving, diversity respecting atmosphere of Eugene, Oregon. Just under the surface of their “normie” presenting selves, Combs and Sherman harbor extreme racist views and are actively organizing to create a white supremacist homeland in the Pacific Northwest. The CCC Discord logs and supplemental leaked conversations have revealed their true opinions of their neighbors and community members. They are racist, homophobic, and sling slurs non-stop in their communications with other white nationalists. The participants in the group actively discuss their fantasy white utopia where non-white people, queer folx, and the alter-abled are exterminated so that the vision of their white utopia can come to fruition.

Matthew Combs assisted his girlfriend Bethany Sherman is establishing OG Analytical. His photo is still featured on their website even though his personal profile, position, and name has since been removed. We believe this is due to Combs attempting to take precautions against being exposed as a neo-Nazi. Thanks to our highly skilled and dedicated regional antifascist research team, we are able to connect “blackhat16” activity to Matthew Combs.

Bethany Marie Sherman was born on May 13, 1982, has a felony conviction from 2004, and drives a Subaru with an Oregon license plate number 731 FPA.  She has gone by several name on her Nazi Twitter account: Mabel Maude, Cascadia Maude, and currently Mrs. Blackhat. Surprisingly, Bethany has served as President of the local group Women Leaders in Cannabis and as Executive Director for the not-for-profit Cannabis Safety Institute. She has served on the OLCC Recreational Marijuana Technical Advisory Subcommittee Laboratories and Traceability and is currently the Manager and CEO of OG Analytical.

Out of all the girlfriends and wives associated with the members of the leaked CCC Discord server and private Twitter chats, Bethany Sherman seems the most knowledgeable and involved in her partner’s own neo-Nazi organizing. In addition to “Wehrmacht’s” delightful, slip-of-the-tongue suggestion that Bethany might be capable of converting his own girlfriend to neo-Nazi ideology via her “woman’s perspective,” there are a number of other instances in which Bethany expresses her white supremacist views.

Bethany Sherman provides a prime example of how supposedly “liberal,” yet predominantly white communities can easily harbor hardcore white supremacist organizers. In her role as CEO of OG Analytical, Bethany was in a position to begin a number of groups aimed at supporting “women in the industry,” and was repeatedly profiled in cannabis industry publications and local papers for her work.  Her white corporate feminism was, it seems, in no way incompatible with her belief in, for example, a white ethnostate, or in “the Jewish conspiracy” at the heart of neo-Nazi ideology. Simplistic and self-centered “hippie” lifestyle choices are not, and have never been sufficient to inoculate individual white people against possible far-right radicalization, and Oregon itself sets a prime example of how certain “alternative” lifestyles and communities serve as a near-perfect environment for crypto fascist and white traditionalist organizations to incubate within.

Matthew Combs and Bethany Sherman are expecting their second child and planning to move away from Eugene as soon as possible. They are seeking to create a white only community in Douglas County. Combs’ family is in the Glide area and Sherman’s family is in the Roseburg area. The Eugene community will be safer without their presence, but other communities will have to deal with their neo-Nazi activity. Let us not make their experiences easier so long as they continue to hold these harmful beliefs, organize with other national socialist and white supremacists, and act in ways that put non-white, queer, and alter-abled communities in danger.

Urge your contacts not to financially support neo-Nazi activity. Do not rent from home owner Bethany Sherman at 1177 West 11th Avenue in Eugene. Urge the cannabis community not to do business with OG Analytical. The business can be contacted in person at its location at 2412 West 11th Avenue in Eugene with a second office at 4543 South Pacific Highway in Pheonix, Oregon; by phone at: (541) 735-3328, (541) 601-7646, and (503) 941-8689; by tweeting to @OGAnalytical and @OG_Bethany; and reviews can be left on their Facebook page. Ask your local dispensaries if their products are tested by OG Analytical, and if they are, urge them to cut ties with this business and purchase your Nazi-free tested product at an alternative dispensary instead.

Eugene, and the state of Oregon, are diverse communities. The citizens of Eugene and beyond deserve to know that this sort of virulent hatred will not be tolerated in our businesses and communities. The violence espoused by Sherman and Combs has no place in our state.