Two people were arrested in New Orleans in connection to a wacky ransom plot involving a $500,000 Confederate monument stolen from an Alabama cemetery and threats to use it as a toilet unless certain demands were met.
Jason Warnick and Kathryn Diionno were charged with possession of the stolen property last week for allegedly pilfering the Jefferson Davis Memorial Chair from a cemetery in Selma, Alabama, according to Nola.com.
They were also charged with blackmailing the women’s group that owns the 500-pound stone relic, according to a press release sent to CNN from the New Orleans Police Department.
The chair was returned to the Alabama chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy last Thursday and the suspects are in police custody, AL.com reported.
The NOPD is searching for a third suspect in connection with the theft.
The bizarre events unfolded in late-March, when an “anti-racist” group called “White Lies Matter” claimed responsibility for stealing the Jefferson Davis chair from the Old Live Oak Cemetery in Alabama.
The thieves then emailed a ransom note to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, demanding the group hang a large banner from its Virginia headquarters touting a quote by convicted cop killer Assata Shakur, according to AL.com.
Shakur — who was a member of the Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army — was jailed in 1973 for murdering New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster.
