Coast Guard officer accused in terror plot lived in Las Vegas area

The U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant accused of plotting to kill politicians and journalists previously lived in Boulder City and Henderson, the Las Vegas Review-Journal has learned.

Christopher Paul Hasson was working in Washington, D.C., earlier this month when federal investigators swarmed his basement apartment in Maryland and arrested the 49-year-old on weapons and drug charges, landing him in national headlines.

But property records indicate that the self-proclaimed white nationalist lived in Boulder City and the Henderson area for some time in the early 2000s. Federal prosecutors have labeled him a “domestic terrorist.”

Hasson and his family initially moved to the Boulder City area because of a “military transfer,” according to a 2005 rental application that a landlord provided to the Review-Journal.

On the application, Hasson noted that he previously lived for two years in a different Boulder City home, which was owned by “USCG.” That is the abbreviation for U.S. Coast Guard.

The previous home is located at 1312 Marita Drive, and Hasson listed his rent as zero.

Christina Nycek, a former neighbor who still lives across the street from the Marita home, recalled Hasson living there in the early 2000s with his wife and two young children, Killian and Maura.

“They were really cute kids,” Nycek said. “Good kids. Very personable. I remember their names because they were different.”

Wife described as kind

Hasson listed his wife, Shannon Marie Hasson; his mother-in-law, Beverly Jean Coleman; his son, Killian, 10; and his daughter, Maura, 7, as proposed occupants on the rental application.

Nycek said the wife, who went by her middle name, was a kind and thoughtful woman who raised and showed American Staffordshire terriers, a breed of pit bull. Nycek once went to a dog show with the woman at the nearby Veterans’ Memorial Park.

Hasson noted on the 2005 rental application that the family had a dog, which weighed about 20 pounds.

From their Marita Drive home, Hasson’s wife also groomed dogs, Nycek said. She remembered spotting the woman from across the street, washing dogs in a large sink the couple had in their garage. Occasionally, Nycek stopped in to say hi.

One time, the woman groomed Nycek’s shepherd mix, Lady. When the dog’s spleen later burst, Hasson’s wife drove Nycek to her vet to put the dog down, an act of kindness and support that was never lost on her.

Hasson wasn’t home much because he was often working, Nycek said. The Coast Guard confirmed on Tuesday that Hasson was stationed at the Coast Guard LORAN Station in Searchlight in the early 2000s but said the station since has been “disestablished.”

“It’s a small world,” Nycek’s husband, Bob, said while discussing the news Tuesday in front of the couple’s home.

He and his wife said they were shocked to learn that the suspect they had read about is their former neighbor.

The Coast Guard provided a statement in response to inquiries about Hasson and his time in Southern Nevada, but the statement did not include information about the Marita Drive house.

The house was purchased in early 2015 by Ray Zhong, of California, who told the Review-Journal he bought it at a government auction.

A General Services Administration advertisement in 2014 listed the same property as open for bids, and a final inspection report linked to the listing described it as “U.S. Coast Guard Housing.”

The home Hasson was applying to rent in 2005 is located at 1401 Elsa Way, around the corner from the Marita property. Both homes are nestled near Boulder City Hospital.

Nycek said she ran into the children playing outside the Elsa Way house once while on a walk a few months after they moved out of the Marita Drive home.

At the time, Hasson was 35. He listed his employer as “USCG” and position as “ET1,” suggesting that he was an electronics technician. The Nyceks also remembered him being an electronics technician.

The Coast Guard statement did not include information about Hasson’s position.

According to the Coast Guard’s website, “To be an ET, you should have an interest in electronic systems and an aptitude for detailed work. You should be above average at solving mathematical problems. You must have normal color vision. Practical experience or prior training in electronic systems maintenance and repair is helpful, but not required.”

Hasson was an acquisitions officer at the time of his arrest this month.

Couple ‘seemed distant’

When Hasson applied to rent the Elsa Way home, nothing strange jumped out to Patricia Smith, who still owns it.

“It was a little bit off because they weren’t Boulder City people,” she said. “But everything else checked out. They just didn’t stay very long.”

Hasson signed a one-year lease, but he and his family ended up moving out about four or five months later, forfeiting his security deposit. Smith recalled Hasson saying that his wife wanted to be closer to Las Vegas.

“I have a good relationship with most of my tenants,” Smith said. But with the Hassons, there was no connection.

“They just seemed distant, I guess,” Smith said.

After Boulder City, property records place Hasson in the Henderson area for a brief time before he appeared to move east. None of those landlords returned phone calls to the Review-Journal.

Court filings indicate that Hasson served in the Marines between 1988 and 1993, then spent about two years on active duty in the Army National Guard before ultimately joining the Coast Guard, totaling about 28 years of service.

The court documents do not mention Hasson ever having lived in Nevada.

In a recent filing, prosecutors called Hasson’s weapons and drug charges “the proverbial tip of the iceberg,” suggesting that they could tack on more charges in the coming days.

They pointed to an arsenal of weapons that Hasson had amassed over the past two years as well as emails and an internet search history on his work computer that suggested he was considering a series of high-profile individuals as targets.

“The defendant intends to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country,” prosecutors wrote, asking a judge to keep him detained.

A judge granted their request. As of Tuesday, no upcoming hearings in the case had been scheduled.

Contact Rachel Crosby at rcrosby@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3801. Follow @rachelacrosby on Twitter.