The Blotter: Spring 2008
Updates on Extremism and the Law
Oct. 9, 2007
The U.S. Supreme Court reinstated a death sentence for neo-Nazi serial killer Frank Spisak, who was convicted in 1983of the murder of three men in Cleveland but had his death sentence overturned by an appeals court in 2006. Spisak, a pre-operative transsexual who went by the name Frankie Ann, grew a Hitler-style moustache and carried Mein Kampf during his trial. Upon conviction, he shouted, "Heil Hitler!"
Oct. 17, 2007
Two members of the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to charges in connection with a plot to blow up the Johnston County, N.C., courthouse and kill Sheriff Steve Bizell, were sentenced to a year in federal prison after cooperating with authorities. Two months later, in December, a judge found Klan boss and alleged ringleader Charles Barefoot incompetent to stand trial for orchestrating the murder of a fellow Klansman suspected of informing to police.
Nov. 1, 2007
Radical tax protester Robert Beale, a one-time millionaire from Maple Grove, Minn., was arrested in Florida on charges of tax evasion and unlawful flight. The former Minnesota state manager for Christian Right leader Pat Robertson's 1988 presidential campaign, Beale fled just before a federal trial on charges of filing no tax returns between 2000 and 2004, a period in which he earned $5,696,574.
Nov. 13, 2007
A federal judge sentenced Gabriel Laskey to six months of work release, six months of home detention, and five years of probation after the former member of the neo-Nazi Volksfront group apologized for his role in a 2002 attack on a Eugene, Ore., synagogue. Laskey's brother Jacob, Volksfront's former prison affairs coordinator, earlier was handed 11 years for leading the attack, which involved hurling swastika-etched rocks through windows during a service, and obstructing justice.
Nov. 14, 2007
Travis Massey, the former Utah chapter leader of the neo-Nazi National Alliance, was sentenced to four years, nine months in federal prison for his role in two brutal Salt Lake City bar attacks in 2002 and 2003. Shaun Walker, the former chairman of the group, was sentenced earlier to over seven years for his role in what prosecutors described as a conspiracy to deprive minorities of their civil rights.
Nov. 28, 2007
Prosecutors charged Darrell Lynn Madden, a member of the neo-Nazi prison gang, United Aryan Brotherhood, with the October murder of an Oklahoma City gay man as part of a gang initiation. Madden was already in custody, charged with the Nov. 7 killing of Bradley Qualls, the man allegedly being initiated, and a subsequent armed carjacking as Madden tried to flee. Wounded by police during the incident, Madden also was charged with attacking police guards in his hospital room.
Dec. 14, 2007
Santa Ana, Calif., prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty against Billy Joe Johnson, 45, after he implicated himself in a murder while trying to clear two fellow members of the neo-Nazi gang Public Enemy Number One (PENI). Already in prison on another murder, Johnson claimed that he alone murdered PENI co-founder Scott Miller in 2002. But the two other PENI members were convicted anyway, and Johnson unwittingly opened himself up to a capital charge.
Dec. 17, 2007
Three reported members of the neo-Nazi Berdoo Skins — Anthony Allen, Joseph McCool and Ryan White — were convicted of attempted murder in a Dec. 8, 2006, attack on a black man in Claremont, Calif., who was stabbed six times. The three were among a large group headed for a "Free The Order" rally the next day in Los Angeles' Westwood neighborhood. The Order was a white supremacist terror group that assassinated enemies and netted $4.1 million in armored car heists.
Dec. 17, 2007
Dale Clayton Jameton, a ranking official of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang, pleaded guilty to the 2006 murders of a man in Mesquite, Texas, and an unnamed woman whose body has never been found. Officials say Anthony Clark was killed because he was suspected of informing, and the woman was murdered for reasons of "internal discipline." Jameton was sentenced to life without parole.
Dec. 18, 2007
Former neo-Nazi East Side White Pride member Kyle Brewster, who had been returned to prison for violating his parole in the 1988 Portland, Ore., murder of Ethiopian immigrant Mulugeta Seraw, was freed after completing his extended sentence. But he was re-arrested within hours on an assault charge related to an attack on a guard during his latest prison stay. Court officials had failed to notify prison authorities.
