KENNY ZRALLACK'S TRIAL BEGINS TOMORROW: THE RUNDOWN

As we noted in our correction to White supremacist  Kenny Zrallack’s article last week, the trial for him and two other associates on weapons charges is set to start on Monday. Zrallack and his brother Matthew founded the Connecticut White Wolves almost a decade ago, and while they made a name for themselves with flyer distribution, the usual hobknobbing with other Nazis and media time, they also caused grief for themselves with their criminal routines. This might be the nail in the coffin. Zrallack has been spending much of this year getting used to what might be the normal routine for the next few years of his life, staring at prison walls. He’s got a little neo-Nazi support group happening, but that’s often the kiss of death. And then there’s the fact that Connecticut is getting a little pissed at White supremacists trying to make something out of their state. Lest we forget, Hal Turner is supposed to face charges that he threatened state legislators here. But what brought Zrallack and his friends to this point anyway? That’s what we shall explore with this article.

Connecticut Post

Nov. 14–BRIDGEPORT — It’s a simple plan that most businesses employ. Fill a need, build a reputation and grow in status and numbers.

This wasn’t quite your normal business, however. The Connecticut White Wolves had unfurled Nazi flags at a menorah protest in Fairfield last December, stormed a meeting of gay activists at the Stratford library in 2003 and rallied on the Milford Green against immigrants. Now the group, also called Battalion 14, wanted more publicity and more white supremacists to add to its 14-strong membership.

So, federal prosecutors say, the group and its leader, Kenneth Zrallack Jr., of Ansonia, hoped sales of guns, body armor and homemade hand grenades to the Imperial Klans of America, the country’s second-largest Ku Klux Klan offshoot, would bring them recognition, status and members.

Instead, the sales netted them a federal grand jury indictment.

On Monday, Zrallack, 29; his right-hand man, Alexander DeFelice, 33, of Milford; and DeFelice’s friend, David Sutton, 46, also of Milford, who is black, go on trial before U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall and a 12-member jury for participating in a conspiracy to make and sell hand grenades and guns to the informant, a convicted felon.

“This trial is going to be an eye-opener for the people of Connecticut,” said a person who knows the defendants. “This is going to be a wake-up call.”

‘HOME-GROWN TERRORISTS’

The Connecticut White Wolves burst onto news pages in spring 2002.

That’s when Stratford High School released its yearbook showing Zrallack’s younger brother, Matthew, giving a Nazi salute on the cover. The national publicity that garnered spurred them on.

The group claimed to have been born on April 20 — Adolf Hitler’s birthday. Members created a website marked by a snarling white wolf and bearing the words: “White children should not be brought up in this hip-hop, homosexual and DIEversity loving society.”

They began showing up in their black trench coats, Connecticut White Wolves T-shirts, red suspenders and red laced black boots at events like the National Alliance rally in Washington, D.C., protesting U.S. support to Israel; an anti-immigration rally at Liberty State Park in N.J.; and outside Kingdom Life Church in Milford, when the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, President Barack Obama’s controversial former minister, appeared.

“What they are,” said James Monahan, a professor of criminology at the University of New Haven, “are home-grown terrorists.”

Nothing fueled their egos more than words written about their August 2003 appearance at the White Unity Fest conducted by the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Osceola, Ind.

Mark Martin, a member of the White Revolution, spoke glowingly of the Wolves’ appearance at the White Unity Fest, according to a 2004 report filed by the Anti-Defamation League’s Law Enforcement Agency Resource Network.

Later, Kenneth Zrallack discussed the trip online, according to another 2004 intelligence report, this time filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The law center reported him bragging “on the whole ride we were in uniform for each bathroom, food and gas stop. We wore our black cargo pants, red laced boots and our CT White Wolves shirts.”

PROMOTING A RACE WAR?

In September 2003, 20 members and associates gathered outside a Trumbull teenager’s house party. Before police dispersed them, Brian Staehly, a 6-foot, 5-inch, 305-pound Wolf from West Haven, smashed the rear window of a car containing two black teens. Staehly, just 17 at the time, was granted youthful offender status and given a suspended sentence and two years probation.

They are accused of harassing a member’s black neighbor in West Haven, vandalizing a Stratford school superintendent’s car and spraying racial slurs on buildings.

Now the FBI informant claims members of the Wolves discussed how the assassination of Obama would help promote a race war during one of their meetings.

INFORMANT A KEY TO THE CASE

On Monday, prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Justice Department’s national security division in Washington, D.C., will begin presenting evidence to a 12-member jury in Bridgeport. The prosecution team intends to call 29 witnesses and play 101 video and audio recordings, totaling about two-and-a-half hours during the expected three-week trial.

But the key to their case is the testimony from Joseph Anastasio, who for 18 months associated with the group, participated in its rallies, recorded conversations and filmed meetings.

Another witness will be Robert Nill, an official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security who specializes in violent, domestic extremist groups operating in the Northeast. He’ll testify about how stickers and verbal greetings of “88” are a reference to “Heil Hitler,” since H is the eighth letter in the alphabet. He’ll tell the jury the name Battalion 14 comes from the 14-word slogan of white supremacists: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

Already two defendants, William R. Bolton, 31, a reputed member and Edwin T. Westmoreland, 27, a participant, both of Stratford, pleaded guilty to charges and are awaiting sentencing.

Both Zrallack and DeFelice are being detained without bond. Their lawyers, Nicholas Adamucci and Michael Hillis, respectively, declined comment.

They have advised the judge they intend to raise a defense of entrapment by the informant.