The founder of a neo-Nazi group that sent masked men to protest outside a 2023 drag queen story hour event in Concord, N.H., has admitted their anti-LGBTQ intimidation tactics amounted to a civil rights violation, the New Hampshire attorney general’s office announced Thursday.
Christopher R. Hood Jr. of Newburyport, Mass., and his group, the Nationalist Social Club-131, or NSC-131, will be permanently barred by court order from engaging in any further unlawful discriminatory practices, if a judge accepts the deal. Anyone who violates those terms could face further sanctions.
Hood, 27, will be required to complete 250 hours of community service and pay $2,500 in civil penalties, plus another $7,500 if he violates the terms of the court’s order, according to a motion filed by prosecutors. He’ll also be barred from coming within 250 feet of the eatery where this occurred or any other Teatotaller Café location.
The core allegation in this case was that Hood, his organization, and 19 unnamed co-defendants — who directed intimidating chants and homophobic slurs at those inside the establishment, performed Nazi salutes, and banged on the cafe’s glass windows — had sought to compel a place of public accommodation to engage in unlawful discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
“No individual or organization has the right to threaten, intimidate, or coerce a New Hampshire business into violating the law or denying lawful access based on protected characteristics,” Attorney General John M. Formella said in a statement.
“This resolution delivers accountability and sends the message that organized hate group activity that violates the law will not be tolerated,” he added.
The attorneys who represented the defendants in this case, Bradford Ryan Stanton and William E. Gens, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Formella said certain terms under the agreement apply to NSC-131 as an unincorporated association. For example, the group will be permanently barred from all unlawful discriminatory practices and will be prohibited from coming within 250 feet of any location that’s part of the Teatotaller Café business, which has since rebranded as Totally Tea and Coffee.
That means an individual who didn’t participate in the 2023 incident could theoretically be subjected to the terms of this agreement in the future, if there is evidence of their affiliation with NSC-131, he said.
The motion Formella’s office filed with the court indicates NSC-131 has disbanded and Hood has stated he intends to discontinue his involvement with that group and other organized hate activity.
Formella told the Globe that securing a victory in which the defendant admitted wrongdoing represents a significant achievement.
“It was worth it, I think, in the greater context of our civil rights efforts to get that admission,” he said.
This wasn’t Formella’s first attempt to clamp down on NSC-131’s activity. His office filed a complaint in early 2023 alleging the group had committed civil rights violations by hanging a “Keep New England White” banner from a Portsmouth overpass in 2022. But the New Hampshire Supreme Court ultimately ruled in early 2025 that the prosecution was unconstitutional on free-speech grounds.
Formella’s office filed the second case against Hood and NSC-131, regarding the Teatotaller incident, in late 2023.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell also filed a complaint in late 2023 against Hood, NSC-131, and a group leader named Liam McNeil of Waltham, Mass., over incidents involving LGBTQ events and immigrants in emergency shelters. That case is still pending, according to court records.
Hood was formerly part of Patriot Front and the Proud Boys before he founded NSC-131 in late 2019. The members of his group disrupted or shut down several drag queen story events in Massachusetts in 2022, according to the lawsuit. Members of the group regularly wore khaki pants, black shirts or jackets, and ski masks, balaclavas, and neck gaiters to hide their identities.
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In this file photo, Christopher R. Hood Jr. appears at West Roxbury Municipal Court on July 25, 2022, when he was 23 years old. Hood founded the Nationalist Social Club 131 in 2019.Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff
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