A federal grand jury in Alabama has charged a former top employee at the Southern Poverty Law Center in a second superseding indictment of the far-left group.
The jury has charged Heidi Beirich in three of the 14 counts in the indictment, which alleges wire fraud, making false statements, and money laundering to funnel money to the very “hate groups” SPLC claims to fight.
The group funneled more than $4 million to hate groups through field sources, one of whom collected more than $1.2 million while toiling for a neo-Nazi outfit. Beirich enjoyed a romantic relationship with that field source, the indictment alleges.
First Indictment
A federal grand jury indicted SPLC in April, then followed with a superseding indictment in June.
On August 11, a second superseding indictment came down that added Beirich, who ran SPLC’s Intelligence Project and Hatewatch blog.
The indictment alleges:
Unbeknownst to donors, some of [the SPLC’s] donated money was used to fund the leaders and organizers of racist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nations, and the National Alliance.
The SPLC’s paid individuals (“field sources”) engaged in the active promotion of racist groups at the same time that the SPLC was denouncing the same groups on its website.
The indictment calls those field sources “Fs.”
“Between at least 2007 through in or about 2023, the SPLC secretly funneled at least $4.1 million dollars in tax-exempt donor funds through a series of bank accounts supposedly belonging to businesses not associated with the SPLC,” says the indictment:
The purpose of these accounts was to secretly pay Fs who were either leading or affiliated with multiple violent extremist organizations.
Superseding Indictments
The first two indictments call Beirich “Employee-2” and “Director of SPLC’s Intelligence Project.”
Now, she is named.
“To secretly funnel donors’ money to the Fs, employees at the SPLC, including a person who would become the SPLC’s Chief Financial Officer (“Employee-1”), HEIDI BEIRICH, and others, opened and/or modified a series of bank accounts at Bank-1 and Bank-2 in the name of various fictitious entities,” the indictment alleges.
One of those entities is called Tech Writers. Beirich used that bogus outfit to funnel money to “F-9.”
“At the direction of the SPLC, F-9 infiltrated the neo-Nazi organization, the National Alliance. While clandestinely receiving donors’ money through the Tech Writers bank account, F-9 was also fundraising for the National Alliance,” the indictment alleges.
But F-9 did more than raise money. In 2014, he “broke into the headquarters of an extremist organization and stole approximately 25 boxes of documents,” after which he took them from West Virginia to North Carolina:
Thereafter, with the knowledge of HEIDI BEIRICH, donors’ money was used to copy the stolen material after which F-9 broke into the headquarters again and returned the originals. BEIRICH used the copies, knowing they were stolen, as the basis for a story published on “Hatewatch.”
That story, of course, raised more money for SPLC’s corrupt activities. Beirich also paid about $6,000 to another F, F-39, to falsely claim he burgled the extremist outfit.
F-9 collected more than $1.2 million from SPLC through 20 years of loyal service. “Most of this money was secretly funneled to F-9 through the Tech Writers bank account,” the indictment continues:
HEIDI BEIRICH oversaw payments of donors’ money to the Fs, including F-9. BEIRICH was also in a romantic relationship with F-9. During this relationship, BEIRICH and F-9 shared a house and two bank accounts, Between 2015 and 2021, approximately $140,000.00 in donors’ money flowed from the SPLC operating account, through the Tech Writers account, and was ultimately deposited into the joint bank accounts held by F-9 and BEIRICH. This amounted to approximately 66% of all money ever deposited into their joint bank accounts. BEIRICH then used donors’ money to pay the couple’s personal living expenses.
Beirich’s Charges
The 26-page second superseding indictment has added three counts to the original 11-count indictment and first superseding indictment:
- Count One: Wire Fraud conspiracy;
- Counts Two Through Seven: Wire Fraud;
- Count Eight: Conspiracy to Submit False Statements to a Federally Insured Bank;
- Counts Nine through 12: False Statements to a Federally Insured Bank;
- Count 13: Conspiracy to Commit Concealment Money Laundering; and,
- Count 14: Concealment Money Laundering.
The indictment names Beirich in counts one, eight, and 13.
Given the allegation that Beirich used SPLC money to pay for her and F-9’s living expenses, a salient observation is that she has not been charged with fraud, grand larceny, and embezzlement.
“Money doesn’t lie!,” FBI chief Kash Patel wrote on X:
The charity that supposedly fought the KKK actually funded the KKK.
The charity that supposedly fought Neo-Nazis actually funded Neo-Nazis.
Heidi Beirich supposedly dedicated her career to fighting neo-Nazis. The indictment alleges she helped FUND them. …
The Southern Poverty Law Center ran a methodical, calculated scheme to defraud their donor base for millions and used an illicit banking structure system to sow discord and hate into our society. This is the ultimate definition of hypocrisy.
Beirich has now been arrested and charged with wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.
Beirich, of course, denies it all.
“A free and fair society does not use the justice system to silence its political opponents,” said her attorney, Michael Proctor:
Heidi Beirich has dedicated her life to fighting hate groups and extremist movements like the KKK, neo-Nazis, and other white supremacists. She has combatted these hateful, ugly, and un-American extremists and their repeated uses of violence and intimidation in order to promote a fairer, safer, and more just America. Her decades-long record of success dismantling hate groups [speaks] volumes. For this, she has been indicted.
