The Justice Department alleges the civil rights group defrauded donors by using their money to fund the very extremism it claimed to be fighting, with more than $3 million paid to informants through a now-defunct program to infiltrate white supremacist and other extremist groups. Prosecutors allege some of the money was used by extremists to carry out other crimes.
In announcing the charges, Acting Attorney-General Todd Blanche said “The SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.”
The group, which has become well known for labeling groups it disagrees with as "hate groups," faces charges of wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering in the case brought in the federal court in Alabama, where the organization is based.
The SPLC said it “will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff, and our work" against what it described as false allegations. The group said its informant program saved lives.
Prosecutors say the group never disclosed to donors details of the informant program.
“They’re required to under the laws associated with a nonprofit to have certain transparency and honesty in what they’re telling donors they’re going to spend money on and what their mission statement is and what they’re raising money doing,” Blanche said.
The indictment includes details on at least nine unnamed informants were paid by the SPLC through a secret program that prosecutors say began in the 1980s. Within the SPLC, they were known as field sources or “the Fs,” according to the indictment.
One informant was paid more than $1 million between 2014 and 2023 while affiliated with the neo-Nazi National Alliance, the indictment said. Prosecutors say another informant was a member of the “online leadership chat group” that planned the 2017 white nationalist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The informant attended the rally at the direction of the SPLC, according to the indictment, and helped coordinate transportation for several others. That person was allegedly paid more than $270,000 between 2015 and 2013.
