Vincent Bertollini

Through an organization he co-founded, the 11th Hour Remnant Messenger. Repeated drunk driving arrests in the late 1990s eventually resulted in a lengthy prison sentence for Bertollini, at least temporarily ending his propagandizing.

Criminal History

In 1998, Bertollini was convicted twice in Idaho of driving under the influence. He fled the country in 2001 to avoid prosecution on a third Idaho DUI charge. After years on the lam, he was arrested by the FBI in 2006 in Santa Fe, N.M., on a fugitive warrant. Bertollini was found in possession of illegal weapons, including a sawed-off shotgun, and sentenced to one to four years in prison. Bertollini completed his 41-month sentence in 2010 and relocated to New Mexico. Bertollini's supervised release ends in February 2013.

In His Own Words
"We are standing by [Aryan Nations] Pastor [Richard] Butler in the aftermath of a travesty of justice meted out to him by the JEWS of Montgomery, Alabama, the JEWS of North Idaho and the whigger [racist slang for "white n-----"] whites who are a disgrace to our race in this area."
— Sandpoint.com 2000 posting referring to Butler's loss in a civil suit brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center

"We pray that the JEW bastards who were part and parcel of this sham and that their willing white minions all choke on those possessions and die a most miserable, disease ridden life and that this curse goes to the tenth generation of each of these JEW bastards!"
— Watchdog National Socialist Forum letter on the civil suit verdict, 2000

Background
A key financier of neo-Nazi and Christian Identity groups and individuals in America, millionaire Richard Vincent Bertollini made a fortune in Silicon Valley in the early 1990s with his computer company Systems Chemistry. Bertollini and business partner Carl E. Story invested a substantial portion of their fortunes into the 11th Hour Remnant Messenger, a Christian Identity organization and publishing house that the two moneyed racists established in 1995 in Sandpoint, Idaho, a base of operations they chose because its population was "98% Adamic, white, Aryan people." Also important was Sandpoint's proximity to the compound of their close ally, Aryan Nations, led by Richard Butler.

Through 11th Hour Remnant Messenger, Bertollini and personally financed the distribution of hundreds of thousands of racist and anti-Semitic flyers, pamphlets, audio- and videotapes, many of which were produced by Bertollini himself, espousing the belief that the white race is divinely chosen, Jews are the spawn of the devil, and people of color are sub-human. At one point Bertollini mailed out thousands of unsolicited copies of an interview with Aryan Nations' Richard Butler to virtually every resident of an entire northern Idaho zip code.

When Butler lost his 20-acre Aryan Nations compound as the result of a 2000 lawsuit brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on behalf of a family that was terrorized by the group's security guards, Bertollini put up a chunk of money to buy the neo-Nazi leader a new home in nearby Hayden, Idaho. 

In 2001, Bertollini was arrested in Idaho for drunk driving for the third time in less than four years. This time facing a felony charge and almost certain prison time due to his two prior DUI convictions, Bertollini jumped bail and fled. Three years later, in September 2004, Butler died, leaving an unpaid balance of $91,486 on the Hayden home that Bertollini had helped him buy. In 2005, the mortgage holder decided to put the house up for auction because no one was keeping up the payments. That apparently renewed the interest of the FBI in Bertollini. In 2005, FBI officials told reporters that they had found that Bertollini was having mail forwarded to Dublin, Ireland. Then, in April 2006, FBI agents in Santa Fe, N.M, finally arrested him. He was found in possession of nine firearms, including a .380-caliber rifle and a sawed-off shotgun. On Aug. 25, 2006, he pleaded guilty to the Idaho DUI charge and was sentenced to one to four years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Bertollini was released from prison in 2010 after serving 41 months and relocated to Albuquerque, N.M. He also changed his name legally to "Vince Bert." After the SPLC discovered Bertollini's new name and location in May 2011, he said, "I have no secrets except I didn't want to drag that name [Bertollini] around."

Bertollini has continued with his racist activism. He runs a couple of websites, including one promoting his brand of Christian Identity through his resurrected 11th Hour Remnant Messenger. He also told the SPLC that he is self-publishing two books, Crimes and Punishment MMX (or How the Feds Conspire to Screw You) and a second called, It's the Jews, Stupid!

Bertollini will remain on federally supervised release until February 2013. Bertollini told the SPLC that when his release ends, "all bets are off." "I'm not out there standing on the corners anymore," he said, "but I can do my little thing on the Internet. If people cruise by, I might get a convert or two."