The Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted on 11 federal counts including wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced April 21, accusing the civil rights nonprofit of secretly funneling donor money to informants embedded in extremist groups.
According to the Los Angeles Times, prosecutors allege in the indictment that payments totaling more than $3 million were made between 2014 and 2023 to people with ties to the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nations, the National Socialist Party of America, and related white supremacist organizations. The indictment does not allege that funds went directly to the hate groups themselves.
"The SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred," Blanche said, according to ABC News.
Shell $SHEL accounts bearing names like Center Investigative Agency, Fox Photography, and Rare Books Warehouse were used to move the money, prosecutors allege, with donated funds ultimately loaded onto prepaid cards and passed to informants, according to the Los Angeles Times. The indictment charges the group with defrauding donors by not disclosing that their contributions would be used to pay active members of extremist groups.
SPLC interim CEO Bryan Fair denied wrongdoing and said the program saved lives. "There is no question that what we learned from informants saved lives," Fair told the Los Angeles Times. He said the payments were kept confidential to protect informant safety and that information gathered was regularly shared with the FBI.
Blanche later acknowledged the SPLC has a documented history of sharing information with law enforcement. "That's well-documented, and there's no dispute there. They aren't charged with any of that conduct," Blanche said, according to ABC News. No individuals were charged in the indictment.
In an unusual legal countermove, the SPLC asked a court to unseal grand jury transcripts, contending that prosecutors withheld evidence that the informant network aided law enforcement in jailing violent extremists, according to the Los Angeles Times. Legal experts cited in that report called the indictment "absurd" and "irresponsible."
A coalition letter signed by more than 100 civil rights groups pledged to stand with organizations facing what they called unjust federal targeting, according to the Los Angeles Times. Civil rights leaders described the charges as politically motivated, while the SPLC said it would contest the case in court.