Ex-LPD officer, fired in '20 for neo-Nazi posts, turns up in connection with terror plot

Plus, Lafayette police expand automated license plate reader after nine-month test run

Joseph Zacharek posed for this photo in June 2020, when he was hired by the Lafayette Police Department. (Photo: LPD)

When the Lafayette Police Department fired Joseph Zacharek, less than 24 hours after he was exposed in October 2020 for posting messages on a neo-Nazi group’s message board as recently as 2017, police owned up to not knowing that about his past.

But testimony tied to a federal case, one targeting a group of white supremacists who schemed to take out part of the U.S. power grid in hopes of stirring chaos and triggering a potential race war, indicates that Zacharek had connections to those accused in the domestic terror plot while he was an officer and shortly after he was fired.

According to court documents,