Ex-Southern Poverty Law Center Employee Employee Arrested for Paying Informants Inside White Supremacy Groups: Report

Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images

A former employee from the Southern Poverty Law Center was arrested and charged for allegedly paying informants within white supremacist groups.

According to a Wednesday report from CNN, Heidi Beirich has been charged with wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to conceal money laundering.

One of those informants was even romantically involved with Beirich. The report read:

The woman, Heidi Beirich, previously ran the SPLC’s project tracking hate groups in the US and allegedly “oversaw payments of donors’ money” to people inside of these hate groups, according to the indictment. Prosecutors say she shared a bank account with one of those sources, which included funds from the SPLC’s payments.

“I believe she was part of the effort to open bank accounts in completely fictitious companies’ names and make payments to individuals for reasons that that were not accurate as described,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a news conference Wednesday. “This is exactly what we said would happen in a case like this, which is that our investigators and the U.S. attorneys and the agents working the case will can keep on working it even after the initial indictment.”

As noted by CNN, the charged against Beirich were part of a larger DOJ case on the SPLC over similar alleged payments. The organization has accused the DOJ of “mischaracterizing” its informant program used to “gather intelligence on hate groups.”

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!