MORE FROM THE BILL WHITE TRIAL

DLJ spent a few days in Roanoke, VA taking in Bill White’s trial, and Bill apparently had an issue with that. The moment he walked into the courtroom on Monday, Bill pointed him out to his lawyers who then spoke to US Marshals. We don’t know what the hell Bill thought was going to happen, but there were no other issues after that, and we were able to sit through some rather curious proceedings. Things are a little more livelier than with Hal Turner’s trial, and that’s probably due to the fact that the actual victims were able to testify against Bill. We are still not too sure how this case is going to go, but we do know this: Bill will not be able to do the old things as he did them before he was arrested, not without a heavy boom coming down on him with lightning speed. The case will go on for a few more days, and we will have the latest developments as we go along. We will again note the Roanoke Times blog on the case so you can follow the case from reporters on the ground, since DLJ is on his way back to the fun and excitement of Philadelphia!

One People’s Project

ROANOKE, VA – Bill White’s trial has gone on for four days, and over those days several persons stepped forward to explain how the neo-Nazi webmaster of Overthrow.com and the self-styled “commander” of the American National Socialist Workers Party (ANSWP) victimized them with his online threats and direct correspondence from White himself warning them to discontinue the activities they were involved with that came to his attention. So far, the defense’s approach has been to attempt to discredit the prosecution’s witnesses by questioning their character.

On Tuesday, the prosecution presented five more witnesses, among them two who were involved in the Virginia Beach bias suit against their landlord who are currently suing White for threatening them, and a member of the National Alliance (NA) who flyered the neighborhood of columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. in the dead of night. NA member Douglass Hantske, a house painter from Annapolis, MD, testified in the morning that he had went out at 11:00 PM one night to Pitts’ neighborhood approximately 30 minutes away to distribute racist flyers there. Pitts had angered white supremacists after he took issue with them attempting to exploit a brutal murder of a young white couple in Knoxville, TN that three African Americans have since been convicted of the murder with another still awaiting trial.

Hantske said that he believes he found Pitts’ address on White’s website Overthrow.com after he choose to respond to the anger towards Pitts by doing so. Hantske noted however, that he has no association with White or his organization, the American National Socialist Workers Party (ANSWP) “We’re not as flamboyant, I guess, or visual,” Hantske said, referring to the National Alliance.

Hantske was joined in court with fellow Maryland National Alliance member Steven J. Smith. Both had appeared in the past together at rallies in the Washington DC area, most notably one organized by anti-Semitic activist Ken Meyercord at the Christians for Israel conference held at the Washington Hilton in 2006.

Two FBI agents also testified on Monday, one confirming the authenticity of the podcast played in court where White relished in harassing Pitts. During his cross examination, Defense Attorney David Damico, recalling White’s remark to a reporter that he “wouldn’t shed a tear,” if someone killed Pitts, asked Special Agent Paul Messing, “If Osama bin Laden was killed, would you shed a tear?” That elicited gasps throughout the courtroom, and an immediate and angry objection from Prosecuting Attorney Cindy Chung.
During the afternoon, two women testified to how White harassed them and their fellow residents in their Virginia Beach apartment complex hoping they could intimidate them into dropping the discrimination lawsuit they filed against their landlord. One woman said that White mailed copies of his magazine the National Socialist to her and other residents, along with a letter addressed to “Whiney Section 8 N—-r.” explaining why. “You may get one over on your landlord this time, and you may not,” he wrote. “But know that the white community has noticed you, and we know that you are and never will be anything more than a dirty parasite — and that our patience with you and the government that coddles you runs thin.”
Tiese Mitchell said she was so afraid, she moved out of the apartment fifteen minutes after receiving the mailing. Tasha Reddick also testified to receiving the same magazine and letter, only her package was addressed to her children, who were five and eight years old at the time. Chung objected to the line of questioning from the Damico about the background of the women who were poor working class, particularly when it was asked of Reddick about her sister being a drug dealer, and when the particulars of the lawsuit against their landlord, which they had won, was discussed. Both women are also currently suing White in civil court.

On Tuesday, Canadian attorney Richard Warman testified to White’s two year campaign pushing for someone to kill him. Warman’s efforts against neo-Nazis in Canada, prompted such a campaign from White who did so via his website, forums he posted on, emails, and by sending Warman magazines as he did with the Virginia Beach tenants. White particularly included with his calls that Warman be killed his home address, which made the situation particularly concerning. Warman and later his wife testified that because of the harassment they had to change many things in their life, the most painful being not giving their daughter his last name to protect her. Warman took particular issue with any attempt to frame calls for his murder as anything else other than a threat. “No rational person takes a call for his murder any other way than a threat to his personal safety,” he wrote.

Damico however noted how his activities included speaking at Toronto Anti-Racist Action’s (ARA) Youth Against Hate conference in August 2005. There, Warman spoke of the “Maximum Disruption” tactic, which he described as legal remedies to pursue neo-Nazis in Canada and shut them down. Damico suggested however that ARA is an organization that is involved in violence with neo-Nazis, even displaying a printout of the ARA website and characterizing members of the organization as vigilantes. Warman noted however that he has had no other affiliation with ARA, other than the speech he gave. Warman also corrected Damico assertion that ARA believes firebombing homes, including that of Ernst Zundel, a prominent Holocaust denier who used to live in Toronto until he was deported and sent back to Germany where he is currently serving prison time for incitement for Holocaust denial, his release reportedly to be on March 7. Warman noted that no one has ever implicated ARA in that bombing, no one has ever been caught, and no one knows who was responsible for the act. He also noted that ARA has never fought with Nazis as a goal but it has often been the end result of confronting them at rallies. Damico prompted another gasp of outrage when he said to Warman, while noting how White could have possibly been looking at Warman as a threat to Canada the same way many generally looked to Sadaam Hussein as a threat to Iraq, “Maybe he’s using a little Maximum Disruption of his own!”

The afternoon session saw Former Mayor Charles Tyson of South Harrison, NJ. Tyson was the Township’s first black mayor, and he received a number of racist calls and threats during that time, as well as an unknown person defacing a campaign sign on his lawn with racial slurs. On the evening that a news broadcast announced an increase in the reward for those responsible, Bill White called the mayor and his wife while they were sleeping, threatening to put a Nazi sign on their front l
awn. The following Monday, Mayor Tyson was notified of an email sent to him by White just a few minutes after he hung up on the couple:

Dear Mayor Charles Tyson:

I recently read of the racism you’ve faced in Harrisonville, New Jersey, and I wanted to make something perfectly clear:
a) You are a nigger unworthy to govern over any white man; and,
b) Fuck you. You’ve gotten exactly what you deserve from your constituents.
Unfortunately, the days when white men would simply burn the local newspaper and run nigger officials out with tar and feathers are past. However, your incidents give me hope that perhaps we shall see them again.

Bill White, Commander
American National Socialist Workers Party

The email also noted the mayor’s home address and that White spoke to his wife, who was the one who answered the phone. Defense Attorney Ray Ferris attempted to show that no direct threat was made towards Tyson by White.

The prosecution has possibly one more witness before it is expected to rest, and the defense will then call their witnesses, among them possibly White’s wife Meghan and former attorney Richard Lawrence.