Southern Poverty Law Center Indicted on Federal Fraud Charges
The indictment accuses the prominent civil rights non-profit of defrauding donors by paying informants inside violent extremist groups.
On April 21, a federal grand jury in the Middle District of Alabama indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for allegedly engaging in a nine years’ long fraud operation by covertly paying over $3 million to informants associated with violent extremist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation, and the National Alliance.
The grand jury voted to indict the civil rights non-profit on six counts of wire fraud, four counts of false statements to a federally insured bank, and one count of conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering. The filing also includes two forfeiture actions to recover the alleged proceeds from the organization’s fraud scheme.
The indictment alleges that the SPLC misled donors by claiming their funds would be used to “dismantle” violent extremist groups. The indictment further accuses the organization of committing fraud through its use of those donations to pay its network of informants, dubbed field sources or “the Fs,” which included leaders and members of the same groups the SPLC aimed to dismantle.
You can read the indictment here or below:
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