Neo-Nazi Bill White, on the Lam, Arrested in Mexico

Well-known Virginia neo-Nazi and convicted felon Bill White was arrested in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, after nearly a month on the run. He missed a scheduled check-in with his probation officer and disappeared from his home in Lynchburg last month. White, who faces federal charges of violating the terms of his supervised release, is expected to be returned to Roanoke, Va.

White was once the leader of the American National Socialist Workers Party and had a reputation as a vicious and volatile Internet gossip. His Overthrow.com was the second most popular racist website during its heyday.

In 2004, he was convicted of assaulting a woman who was handing out flyers that identified him as a neo-Nazi landlord. He was held in contempt of court when he cursed at the woman from the witness stand. In 2009, a federal jury found him guilty of threatening several people through intimidating phone calls and Internet postings. In January 2011, he was found guilty of using his website to encourage violence against a jury foreman in the trial of Matt Hale, another white supremacist.

White was released from prison in April 2011 after serving two years. A federal judge threw out his conviction with regard to the jury foreman on First Amendment grounds. One of the conditions of his release was a court-ordered restriction on Internet use that required that he refrain from participating in “any Internet related business or hobby involving a website, and the posting of any information on any website.” Nevertheless, White got around that by writing for the print version (which is also available online) of the American Free Press, an anti-Semitic weekly founded by Holocaust denier Willis Carto.

Earlier in May, White allegedly wrote a Facebook post (in direct violation of the court restrictions about Internet use) in which he claimed that he had been tortured in prison and had “left the United States several weeks ago after accepting an offer of asylum from a foreign nation that shares my view that the United States government is not legitimate.” He claimed he would not be returning and requested that anyone with an interest in commissioning or licensing his work contact him. He also asked for donations to help him settle in his new land.