Robert Lorenzo Hester Jr. (born April 21, 1991) is a married U.S. Army veteran residing in Columbia, Missouri. ^[5]He was arrested by the FBI on February 17, 2017 for plotting an ISIS style terrorist attack on President's Day in Kansas City, Missouri. ^[17]

Robert was plotting with an undercover FBI employee who was part of a sting the government set up when it became alarmed by Robert’s anti-American social media posts. They began watching him in August 2016 after being tipped off to social media accounts in which he described his hatred of the US and how he'd converted to Islam. ^[17]

He had allegedly agreed to supply weapons and help organize a Presidents' Day terror attack at bus and train stations across Kansas City, Missouri. ^[17]He exchanged text messages with agents describing how he wanted to start global jihad and put together an attack 10 times as deadly as the Boston Marathon bombings. ^[17]

On one occasion he had one of the agents round to his family home in Columbia, Missouri, where he gave him a bag full of materials to build a bomb. ^[17]

He spent a year in the armed services before being discharged without incident in 2013.

^[5]Robert married Omni Hester in 2012 and have two daughters together.

^[5]