from Jersey Counter-Info

S14, officially known as Storm Division, is a tristate (NJ, PA, NY) area neo nazi group that has been very active over the past few months. They have been busy doing pop-up propaganda demos, trying to recruit virtual and in-person members, mass stickering and putting up fascist graffiti in the region, specifically in the Philadelphia area and NJ. They have also been pushing a united front amongst the far right in the area and openly hold multiple different memberships within groups like NJEHA, Embrace Struggle Active Club, WLM, Atlantic Nationalist Club, and the Garden State Nationalists.

Their activity has been increasingly organized with some of their most recent actions making local media headlines. Despite their high level of organization and escalating actions, S14 and their members have gotten sloppy with their own security.

Due to lapses in S14’s security, antifascists have been able to identify their two leaders, “commandant Joachim Peiper” and his “wife”, as Mark A. Kauffman and Sara Sheaffer respectively.

Sheaffer and Kauffman in plain clothes on the left and in their “disguises” on the right during a neo-nazi demo.

Kauffman and Sheaffer are engaged to be married and are both originally from Massachusetts, having lived in different parts of the state. According to Kauffman, they bounced around a bit in MA and settled in Philadelphia several years ago. Antifascists were able to independently verify Kauffman’s account and confirmed that as of now he and Sheaffer live in North Philadelphia on East Wishart Street. Kauffman also supposedly owns property in the south, “on the Mason Dixon line”.

Sheaffer’s Facbook profile featuring a picture of her and Kauffman from several years ago. Both of them look notably different in 2023.

 

Kauffman’s Facebook profile, which has an updated picture of himself from a month ago.

 

Another recent picture of Kauffman from his Facebook page. Kauffman is subtly showing his neo nazi views by wearing a shirt with a “black sun” on it. This is one of many symbols that neo nazis use to covertly flag to other neo nazis about their views, as the general public is not aware of its meaning.

 

Kauffman provides details about where he lived previously in MA and verifies he currently lives in Philly.

 

At the time of publishing Kauffman’s claim could not be independently verified.

Kauffman reportedly works in construction as a foreman at A Woman Owned Contractor, a “Hispanic owned” construction firm which does large scale commercial roofing and construction services. (More details on Kauffman’s employer and how to contact them will be listed at the end of the article).

Prior to moving to Philadelphia, Kauffman was in the US Army for several years and completed two combat tours in the Middle East. At that point he was already a nazi, as he stated in a public message on S14’s telegram channel.

Kauffman upon returning home from his second tour in the the Army.

 

Kauffman’s account of his time in the US military. Given Kauffman’s actions and beliefs one has to wonder what war crimes is he responsible for.

After his time in the Army, Kauffman was homeless in MA for some time, at one point staying at an NGO that provides assistance to homeless veterans. During this time he and Sheaffer were also using hard drugs and in 2018, Kauffman was brought up on drug trafficking and weapons possession charges in MA. Kauffman reportedly had several ounces of meth and illegal firearms in a storage unit.

At the time of publishing it is unknown if Kauffman was convicted of any of the charges against him in this case.

There was no media follow up on how the case against Kauffman turned out and nothing was publicized. It’s not clear exactly when Kauffman and Sheaffer got clean and moved to Philadelphia, but it is suspected to be around the 2018/2019 time frame.

Kauffman’s white nationalist activities prior to 2022 are hazy, but it seems that Kauffman decided to publicly organize and establish ties with other fascists during 2022 on Gab. He was then connected with a fellow white nationalist, going by the alias Stephen Quest, who was recruiting members and leadership within a neo nazi organization called the National Socialist Youth Alliance (NSYA).

Kauffman’s Gab account, which was created in 2022, coinciding with the timeline of his efforts to publicly organize other fascists and white nationalists.

Kauffman officially launched S14 in March 2023, when he and others split from the NSYA. Upon starting this new nazi organization, Kauffman, with the help of Sheaffer, instituted new organizational security and logistical guidelines and started recruiting efforts both online and in-person. Kauffman made a serious effort to create a nazi safe space on telegram, shying away from infighting and trying to build camaraderie among members.

Kauffman and Sheaffer also have a special interest in recruiting minors.

He also increased the rate of in-person actions within his tristate area crew encouraging pop-up style protests during the day and night time propaganda dissemination actions.

Kauffman pictured during a recent midnight propaganda run where he and other S14 members covered Ridley Township in white nationalist leaflets.

In addition, Kauffman implemented different security guidelines for the public S14 Telegram chat like not discussing illegal activity, not giving out personal info or personal phone numbers to other group members, no infighting, and no glorification of white nationalists who have committed mass shootings. Kauffman has thus far strictly enforced his group’s code, often banning members for breaking these rules.

Ironically though, Kauffman does not hold himself to the same high standard. Kauffman’s first major mistake was providing a detailed background of his life in public Telegram chats which enabled antifascists to construct a profile on him. This included his time in the military, prior life in New England, veiled details about his day job, and the fact he currently lives in North Philly.

His second major mistake was providing information about the level of his fiance’s involvement and unintentionally revealing his fiance’s identity on the S14 public telegram channel.

Kauffman often refers to Sheaffer as his wife, though they are not legally married. Here Kauffman is discussing S14’s reading group.

 

Sheaffer does not have an individual discernible presence on Telegram. In a different situation this could give her plausible deniability over her level of involvement in S14 but Kauffman’s repeated reference to her on Telegram in combination with her heavy in-person involvement shows otherwise.

 

Kauffman’s most egregious error was revealing her legal name.

At the time, Kauffman likely didn’t think too much about mentioning his fiances legal name, because he was using it to try and recruit more women to his crew. Fascist and white nationalist groups are well known to have an absence of women for a variety of reasons, so leveraging female membership is something that would have been valuable to Kauffman and S14 as a whole.

Unfortunately for him, Kauffman’s revelation is the only reason that antifascists were able to find Sheaffer and confirm her identity. Kauffman took basic steps to erase information about himself on the internet, removing many links that could potentially expose him. This coupled with the fact that he and Sheaffer are not legally married added another layer of removal, functionally creating a situation where Sheaffer would be very difficult to identify without her legal name. Because antifascists had her first name they were eventually able to definitively identify and link Sheaffer to Kauffman and S14.

Kauffman and Sheaffer during one of S14’s stickering actions. Kauffman is pictured slapping up neo nazi stickers and Sheaffer is walking with her hair up in the background.

 

Sheaffer and Kauffman holding a new S14 flag at an action in Easton PA with S14, NJEHA, Embrace Struggle Active Club, and other fascists.

Other white supremacist activity in the area, the source of which has not been able to be identified until now, can also be ascribed to Sheaffer. A female member of Atlantic Nationalist Club has been trolling Philadelphia area antifascists on Telegram for a period of time throwing up racist stickers across the city.

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The individual in the Atlantic Nationalist Club video is a white female wearing an engagement ring who quickly puts up a sticker on a utility poll. Given Sheaffer’s background info and the shooting style of the video, the likelihood of this being anyone but her is incredibly low.

S14 has prided themselves themselves on their anonymity, security culture, and ability to do things anonymously for months from behind the comfort of a mask. That time is now over. Kauffman and Sheaffer must be exposed for the nazis that they are.

Kauffman’s reported most recent employer, AWOC, can be reached at their main offices at 215-219-3579 or through email through their website. The following script and photos from the article can be used to contact AWOC about Kauffman.

“Hello I am a concerned Philadelphia resident and I am calling to inquire about the status of an AWOC employee. Mark Kauffman, an AWOC foreman, is a neo nazi and white supremacist. Kauffman regularly engages in bigoted and even illegal behavior directed towards minorities and marginalized people. I am happy to provide concrete evidence of his actions. If Kauffman is still employed at AWOC, it is not a safe environment for anyone. I request that action be taken immediately through terminating his employment. Thank you for your time.”

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