Organizer of Lewiston hate rally arrested by feds

CHICAGO – Matt Hale, the publicity-hungry leader of the small but virulently racist World Church of the Creator, was arrested as he arrived at federal court Wednesday for a hearing on a copyright lawsuit and charged with soliciting the murder of the judge in the case.

The 31-year-old white supremacist, who planned a rally in Lewiston, Maine, this weekend, faces 30 years in prison if convicted of trying to hire someone to kill U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow.

Hale pleaded innocent Wednesday afternoon during a short hearing. As he was led into the courtroom, youthful supporters, some with short-cropped hair and wearing black military garb, stood and gave a Hitler-style salute.

“Freedom of speech does not include the freedom to solicit murder,” said U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, alluding to Hale’s frequent invocation of the First Amendment over the years as he derided virtually every race and ethnicity except whites. “The conduct alleged in this indictment is disturbing on many levels, but particularly so because it targeted a judge, whose sworn duty is to apply the law equally and fairly to all who appear before her.”

Hale was scheduled to speak at a rally in Lewiston on Saturday. It was not clear whether the event would still be held. A call to the group’s headquarters was not immediately returned.

Lewiston Police Chief William Welch said he planned to proceed with security preparations as planned. About 100 officers were expected to be on duty Saturday at the white supremacists’ event at the National Guard building and a pro-diversity celebration at Bates College.

Hale told police he might be jailed for contempt and that he would send a substitute if he could not be in Lewiston himself, Welch said.

The diversity celebration was also going ahead as scheduled, said Mark Schlotterbeck of the Many and One Coalition.

Hale’s presence at the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago, as well as the charges against him, appear to have sprung from a lawsuit over the church’s name brought in 2000 by an Oregon-based religious organization that is the philosophical antithesis of Hale’s, preaching love, tolerance and understanding.

The TE-TA-MA Truth Foundation, which had trademarked the name “Church of the Creator” in 1988, filed suit in May, asking that Hale’s group be barred from using the name World Church of the Creator. The name was first used in the 1970s by white supremacist Ben Klassen, whose book “The White Man’s Bible” is considered the Bible by Hale’s group. Neither Klassen nor followers – Hale being one of several in a string that have fought for power in the movement – ever trademarked the name.

After a series of contentious hearings, Lefkow in October found in favor of TE-TA-MA and issued an exceptionally tough order against Hale’s group. Among other things: The group could not use the WCOTC name or even the words “Church” and “Creator” in any new name; the group had to turn over two Internet domain names to TE-MA-MA; and, most notably, Lefkow ordered Hale’s group to “deliver up for destruction” materials printed with the name, or otherwise have the infringing words removed.

The order prompted Hale, who lives with his father in Peoria and runs the group from their modest home, and other members to file suit against Lefkow, and to rail against the judge and her decision. Hale refused to comply with Lefkow’s order and was headed to court Wednesday for a contempt hearing.

“This court order thus places our church in a state of war with this federal judge and any acting on authority from her kangaroo court,” Hale wrote in one statement. “By your actions, Judge Lefkow, you have made yourself part of the criminal conspiracy to destroy rights that you swore to uphold when you became a judge.”

In his writings, Hale repeatedly notes that Lefkow is married to a Jew, sometimes referring to her as “Lefkow(witz),” calls members of TE-TA-MA “kikes,” and laments oppression by a “Jewish Occupational Government.”

Around the same time, the government alleges, “Hale solicited an individual to forcibly assault and murder” Lefkow.

In December, Hale announced that the World Church of the Creator had moved its world headquarters to Riverton, a central Wyoming city on an American Indian reservation. He would not say why the church was moving.

In addition to fighting Lefkow’s ruling, Hale has been challenged for advertising himself as an attorney. Although he passed the bar exam, the Illinois State Bar declined to let him practice, citing a “gross deficiency in moral character.”

While lamenting the alleged threat to Lefkow, watchdog groups around the country delighted at the news of Hale’s arrest Wednesday.

“This may well spell the end of the World Church of the Creator,” said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “This group has been on the ropes for a year. They have had two major splits. They lost the right to use their name.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.