Southern Poverty Law Center Facing Federal Charges On KKK, Hate Group Payouts
The Southern Poverty Law Center is facing federal fraud charges for allegedly improperly raising millions of dollars to secretly pay leaders of the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups for inside information. Acting…
The Southern Poverty Law Center is facing federal fraud charges for allegedly improperly raising millions of dollars to secretly pay leaders of the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups for inside information.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche made the announcement Tuesday.
The Justice Department alleges the civil rights group defrauded donors.
The group did this by using donor funds to fund the very extremism it claimed to be fighting.
More than $3 million was paid to informants through a now-defunct program to infiltrate white supremacist and other extremist groups.
Prosecutors say some of the money was used by extremists to carry out other crimes, but court papers did not cite specific examples.
“The SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred,” Blanche said.
The Southern Poverty Law Center faces charges of wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The case was brought in the federal court in Alabama, where the organization is based.
The indictment came shortly after the SPLC revealed the existence of a criminal investigation into its disbanded informant program to gather intelligence on extremist group activities.