White Supremacist Is Held in Ordering Judge's Death

New York Times ^ | 1/08/03 | JODI WILGOREN

[A.J.Armitage]

A Matt Hale apologist.

Yep.

[Catspaw]

You may want to read the last two paragraphs of this story from the Chicago Sun Times.  All Hale had to do was put stickers over the words "Church of the Creator" to comply with the judge's order.

The irony, of course, is that the judge had ruled for Hale in this case, but was overturned by the Court of Appeals.  She was ordered to rule against Hale by them.

Your boy will have a detention hearing on Monday. We'll probably know a few more facts of the case and the judge will set bail. I'm sure Hale's supporters will set up a bail and legal defense fund so you have a place help Hale.

Racist accused of hatching plot to murder judge

January 9, 2003

BY STEVE WARMBIR AND ABDON PALLASCH STAFF REPORTERS

The racist reverend, Matt Hale, leader of the World Church of the Creator, had declared a war of words on a federal judge who ruled against his group.

His church's Web site slammed Joan Humphrey Lefkow with racial epithets.

He slapped her with a class- action lawsuit.

Fuhrer's little flock has seen better days   BY ANDREW HERRMANN STAFF REPORTER           Matt Hale's arrest Wednesday is the latest in a stretch of bad news for him. His World Church of the Creator "has been crumbling beneath him for the last year and a half,'' said Devin Burghart, who monitors hate groups for the Oak Park-based group Center for New Community. Members of Hale's church, now numbering less than 200 by Burghart's estimate, feel that Hale has been preoccupied with winning a fight to obtain a law license and clumsily embroiled in a trademark dispute. "The organization is in chaos,'' said Burghart, with schisms forming and other white-supremacist groups skimming off Hale's followers. Burghart noted that only about a dozen supporters accompanied Hale to federal court Wednesday. Hale, 31, of East Peoria, reconstituted the dormant racist group in 1996 and for years ran it out of a spare bedroom in his father's house. He has claimed his prejudice dates to age 12 when he saw a black man kiss a white woman. He first found public attention in 1990 when he spread racist literature at Bradley University in Peoria. In 1999, Hale's national fame emerged when a follower, Benjamin Smith, attacked African Americans, Asians and Jews. Smith shot and killed two people--including former Northwestern University basketball coach Ricky Byrdsong--and wounded nine others before committing suicide. Despite Hale earning a law degree from Southern Illinois University Law School and passing the Illinois bar exam, the state Supreme Court turned back his bid for a law license. That ruling, some believe, spurred Smith to murder. The Anti-Defamation League has linked the World Church of the Creator to race-related violence, including bombings in Baltimore and Los Angeles and a murder in Florida. Last year, Hale's group lost a trademark fight with an Oregon church over the use of the name "Church of the Creator'' and was ordered to stop distributing literature with that name--a prime source of revenue for Hale's organization. Instead, according to Burghart, Hale had the group's pamphlets and books sent to the group's "new headquarters'' in Riverton, Wyo. On Wednesday, word of Hale's arrest was cheered in Riverton, an agricultural and mining community of 10,000. "Are you kidding? Oh, thank God!'' said a woman answering phones at the town's chamber of commerce. Steve Peck, publisher of the local paper, the Riverton Ranger, said Hale's December announcement that the group was relocating to Wyoming upset the community and spurred public condemnations of racism. Hale may have chosen Riverton because a former associate, Rudy Stanko, lives nearby. Peck said Hale has not been seen in Riverton and that a Riverton man designated as head of the operation has mainly stayed to himself. "Initially we thought they'd be organizing meetings and rallying support and trying to convert local citizens. It's been more than a month and no activity. It's just a guy in his house,'' said Peck.

And then he graduated from hateful words to a would-be deadly deed--asking someone to have the judge killed, federal prosecutors alleged Wednesday.

Hale, 31, of East Peoria, was arrested about 1 p.m. Wednesday as he headed toward the elevators at the Dirksen Federal Building on his way to a court hearing. The judge wasn't waiting for him, but FBI agents, deputy U.S. marshals and Chicago police were.

Hale believed he would be jailed for being in contempt of court after failing to follow a judge's order filed against his group last November. Hale wanted the judge disqualified from the case for her alleged race bias.

Instead, Hale got pinched for something much more serious.

For a man who has often found safe harbor in the First Amendment for his attacks on African Americans and Jews, he will find none this time, authorities said.

"When you ask someone to kill someone, the First Amendment goes away," U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said, remaining tight-lipped on any details of the case.

"If it was a rhetorical flourish, we wouldn't prosecute someone for a rhetorical flourish."

Hale was accused of soliciting an individual between Nov. 29 and Dec. 17 last year "to forcibly assault and murder" the judge.

Hale's writings on his church Web site targeting the judge had attracted investigators over the last few months, culminating in his arrest Wednesday.

"He wanted lots of attention, and he got it," one law enforcement source said.

The house of Hale's father in East Peoria, where Hale has lived, was searched by the FBI on Wednesday.

And Hale backers said the feds seized the rental van they had driven here to support Hale.

Hale appeared dazed as he stood before a federal judge on the criminal charge late Wednesday. His followers stood and gave what appeared to many observers as a Hitler-style salute as he entered. They later explained it was a Roman salute, a typical greeting among group members. Church members said they could never believe he would resort to violence.

Hale is being held without bond pending a court hearing Monday.

Hale's writings had warned of violence if Lefkow didn't change her ruling on a trademark case involving the group.

The lawsuit began in 2000 when an Oregon church, the TE-TA-MA Truth Foundation, sued Hale's group. The Oregon group had registered "Church of the Creator" as a trademark and wanted Hale's group to stop using it.

At first, the judge ruled for Hale's group but then had to change her decision after the federal appellate court reversed her.

She had asked Hale to explain why the church was still using the trademarked name on its Web site and writings. Hale took this to mean his church had to burn "its bibles."

"I say too then that there is only so much we as a Church can endure before a minister can no longer look the people in the eye with a straight face preaching legality when an individual like Judge Lefkow indulges in unbridled terrorism against people who simply want to practice their religion," Hale wrote in a Jan. 3 press release.

Hale came to national attention in 1999, when a member of his group went on a killing rampage, targeting minorities. Benjamin Smith killed two people, including former Northwestern University basketball coach Ricky Byrdsong, and wounded nine others before killing himself.

While Hale said he was not responsible for the violence, he never disavowed it.

On the Web site, followers were urged to get the home addresses of people involved in the trademark case, authorities said.

Even though Hale expected to be put in jail for contempt Wednesday, it was far from clear the judge would take that action.

Lefkow isn't known for throwing someone in jail in a civil matter.

One fellow judge called her "one of the most gentle, kind, wise persons who could grace the bench--the idea of somebody wanting to hurt her is tragic."

Hale and other church members were wrong about another aspect of the case. They called it part of a Jewish conspiracy involving a judge who is either Jewish or married to one.

The judge, though, is not Jewish.

Nor is her husband.

As for the judge's order, Hale's group would not have had to destroy any church writings with the trademark name on it, according to attorneys familiar with the law.

The group could have simply put stickers over the Church of the Creator name to satisfy the order, the lawyers said.

[Catspaw]

He's putting up press releases and links to that openly racist and antisemitic site? Oh, yeah, I think you've got him pegged.

[AppyPappy]

It will be interesting to see the evidence. I wouldn't put it past Hale to contact one of his closest minions and give the order, not knowing the guy was an undercover fed. I get the feeling he is a coward deep down.

[AppyPappy]

And a LINUX user. Don't let Bush2000 hear about this.

[Daveinyork]

Matt Hale showed up last year, here in York, PA, trying to make us a symbol for white supremacy because of the arrest of our Mayor for his connection to a 1969 murder of a black woman, and the upcoming trial of two black men for their part in the murder of a white cop in the same year. In response, I wrote the following last year. It was published in the local newspaper:


12:30 PM, January 12, 2002, right around the corner from my home I saw a row of Nazi flags flying, the flag under which dozens of my relatives that I never knew, and millions of my people, were murdered, the flag under which dozens of other relatives and millions of my people were subjected to unspeakable oppression, the flag under which a monstrous evil tried to enslave the world, as the Dark Lord Sauron tried to enslave Middle Earth in the Lord of the Rings.

In 1928, the Saturday night after my father and his family moved to York from upstate New York, they looked out their front door and watched the Ku Klux Klan, hoods, sheets, and all, marching to their weekly cross burning ritual. To a 14 year-old Jewish kid, it was frightening, as it should be to all. It so affected his thinking that, in 1940, when he and Rabbi (Alexander D.) Goode were asked to found a Boy Scout Troop at the Jewish Community Center, the conditions set by Dad and Rabbi Goode were that no young man would be denied membership on account of his religion, race, or national origin.

As I grew up in York, and attended York High, and watched the racial violence in the South on TV, it was easy to become smug about the notion that York was a multi-racial city, that Yorh High was integrated, that I had several friends who were black. It never occurred to me that, except at school and school functions, I never really socialized with these friends,, except that I just figured that they lived in different parts of the city because of lingering economic effects of past oppression that had been solved by civil rights legislation.

In my senior year, I was shaken out of my complacency. That year, our homecoming Queen was the first black girl to be so chosen in York's history. The reaction of far too many of York High's white students was shocking. Even worse was the harrassment we took from friends who were students of county schools. The only thing that prevented a race riot at the homecoming game was the victory over Steelton, the first in several years. (As Steelton players were the worst sports in history, they reacted violently to being tackled or scored upon, and losing infuriated them.) Any riots at that game occured between Steelton and York students rather than between white and black students of York High. We had dodged the proverbial bullet.

In 1969, this was punctuated by the riots. By that time, I was no longer shocked, rather, I was angered by the cooperation between some of the police officers and the criminals and juvenile delinquents who murdered Mrs. (Lillie Belle) Allen.

Since then, this community's leaders have worked hard, with many bumps on the road, to erase the hate that has separated Yorkers along ethnic lines. Then Matt Hale showed up and downtown York filled up with hatemongers, flying flags that symbolized hatred of anyone who was different, right around the corner from my house.

Just as bad were the people, many of them anarchists and communists, who showed up to confront the Nazis. As I watched in horror, which alternated with amusement, these two ridiculous, uncivilized, mobs stood on opposite sides of the first block of South Queen Street, yelling insults at each other, and at everything that represents the best of America, trying to get at each other. The only thing standing between them was the thin blue line of police officers, who did their job with professionalism and courage in the face of outrageous insults, and attempts, on the part of the communists and anarchists, to break through and riot with the Nazis.

As most Americans have shunned both of these ideologies, and neither side has any mass movement behind them, they are dangerous mostly to the communities in which they show up, and to themselves, and I found myself wishing for a plague to descend on both of their houses. Mostly, they are ridiculous, self-absorbed, self-important egotists, thinking that they have the answers to all the problems of the world.

As it became evident that the police had matters well in hand, I slipped outside, cameras in hand, to record this tempest in a teapot for posterity. It seemed that the Nazis knew just how far they could go without risking arrest, and they went right up to that line, yelling insults that they knew would provoke a violent response from the protesters. Many protesters, wanting to tie the Nazis and the police together in the minds of their supporters, reacted violently, and got arrested, as they had planned to do, failing, however, to provoke the kind of violent reaction from the police that they hoped would radicalize sympathetic onlookers.

When it was all over, I made a point of complimenting every police officer that I saw, telling them how impressed I was at the job they had done. Then, I took six rolls of 35mm film to be developed, shocked at the number of pictures I had taken. So many people had taken pictures of this event, that the photo shop was so inundated with film for processing, that they could not finish mine until this (Sunday) afternoon.

This morning, I made a pot of tea, ate lox and bagel, smoked a pipe, read the Sunday News, and thought about what had happened. It's quiet now, and we can go back to addressing the real problems of our community, such as the city's fiscal mess. But I will never forget the day the Nazi flags flew around the corner from my house.

[Catspaw]

Given that Hale's buddy's 1999 shooting rampage was in Illinois & Indiana--a bit too close to me for comfort--I paid attention to Hale's numerous TV appearances post-murders. His story shifted from not knowing Smith to, well, he knew him, but he wasn't a member of the "church" to making Smith into a martyr for his "church." He just lied and lied and lied. They just never had enough to charge him, but there's no doubt in my mind that Hale inspired Smith to kill after Hale's law license was denied.

I can see Hale wanting a few degrees of separation from the actual murder of the judge--you know, "inspiring" someone to kill the judge, but not getting his hands dirty--but he may have said the wrong thing to the wrong person and that's how they nailed Hale. I hope the case is airtight.

The prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, is playing it smart by keeping details of this case close to his vest. (I don't like prosecutors who try their cases in the press.) I note none of the news stories I've read give much more than the basics of the indictment, which was quite thin as to details, and history of Hale and WCOTC.

There's also the matter of the informant, whose life would definitely be in danger once his/her identity is known.

[Catspaw]

Daveinyork, what an insightful letter. I remember when Hale's group went to York--he thrives on the media attention and chaos he creates--and I hope that law enforcement in Lewiston, Maine, can learn lessons from the York riots.

[AppyPappy]

1. Hale is a skinny little twerp trying to be a big man.
2. Most of Hale's followers are probably undercover cops
3. I believe Hale pulled a Hitler and unleashed the "secret weapons" from his bunker. Only there were none and the person he told was a cop. And it's on tape.

Hale will pay for what he has done. He filled a lot of heads with crap and caused havoc.

[Bluntpoint]

I hope he likes "black" cooking in the pen. I heard some of those guys make a mean "tossed salad" for prison bitches like this jerkwad.

[AppyPappy]

I'm guessing he is the type who will like it. He has that look about him.

[dighton]

Limp-wristed Führer alert.

[JohnGalt]

The WCOTC has a 30 history of violence, but I think the real interesting piece here is that heirs to Dennis Mahon, Metzinger, Beam, and William Pierce have no concept of 'leaderless resistence' that the elders so effectively worked to have folks murdered and federal buildings demolished.

Hats off to the Illinois folks for getting this guy to crack.

[Clovis_Skeptic]

Matt Hale aside, why isn't Jesse Jackson referred to as a "black supremacist", or why isn't Hale referred to as a "civil rights activist"?

[Cultural Jihad]

Scientia Est Potentia signed up 2002-12-16.
This account has been banned.

[Cultural Jihad]

The racism of white male homosexuals is well known.

[spetznaz]

I hope he likes "black" cooking in the pen. I heard some of those guys make a mean "tossed salad" for prison bitches like this jerkwad.

Oh my goodness ....that must be among the worst things that can happen to the dude (especially due to his 'beliefs')! LOL ....talk about getting $h@fted!

LOL ....someone is going to need loads of Preparation-H!

[Bluntpoint]

"LOL ....someone is going to need loads of Preparation-H!"

Hitler had his "final solution." Hale will have his "final preparation."

[AppyPappy]

He'll be washing undies within the week. A fitting "end" to the situation. The only problem will be that prison will be like Disneyworld every day for this type.