A man who was once seen as a genteel Southerner defending the “honor” of the Confederacy but who secretly lived lavishly on other people’s money now faces the next 19 years in a federal prison cell — possibly in solitary confinement.

The first jolt for 65-year-old Ron Wilson — former national leader of the southern heritage group Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) — may have come when he walked into a packed courtroom in Greenville, S.C., yesterday to be sentenced for the $57.4 million silver bullion Ponzi scheme he operated for more than a decade. There were so many victims who wanted to address the court that a lottery had to be held to determine who could speak, according to media accounts. Many of his 800 identified victims expect to get very little restitution, saying their lives are forever ruined by the swindle Wilson carried out. ( continue to full post… )

A South Carolina extremist who helped engineer an attempt to turn the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) into an actively neo-Confederate organization is now facing prison for his role in a Ponzi scheme that defrauded hundreds of people.

Ron G. Wilson remains free on bond after pleading guilty on July 30 to two counts of mail fraud. Wilson signed a plea agreement admitting that over an 11-year period he and his company, Atlantic Bullion & Coin, cheated at least 800 investors who collectively lost $59 million. ( continue to full post… )

Update: Proposed legislation clarifying that Delaware sheriffs do not have powers of arrest was withdrawn yesterday by its sponsor, WGMD News reports. State Rep. Daniel Short, who sponsored the bill, said he struck it over concerns that the issue had become too politicized. As an alternative, he is reportedly working on a House resolution to ask the state Supreme Court for a ruling on whether the state constitution grants sheriffs the authority to make arrests.

Sheriff Jeff Christopher of Sussex County, Del., believes county sheriffs are the last defense against lawmakers who plan to bulldoze the Constitution, establish a police state, and implement a dark “agenda” (whose details are not entirely clear).

That’s why, in defiance of longstanding state laws that allocate powers of arrest and most other law enforcement duties to state and city police officers – and not to county sheriffs – he’s launched a crusade to turn back the clock to a time when the local sheriff was the county’s top law enforcement official. ( continue to full post… )

Ron G. Wilson, a former national commander of the Southern heritage group Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) who appointed several extremists to the group’s governing boards and oversaw a purge of anti-racist members, has been accused by the South Carolina attorney general of defrauding investors in his company. A complaint made public Monday says Wilson and his Atlantic Bullion & Coin “have engaged in acts, practices, and transactions which violate the South Carolina Uniform Securities Act of 2005.”

Five violations of state’s security laws are alleged in the civil complaint, including making false claims under oath and the fraudulent sale of securities. The complaint says that Wilson’s business handled about $71 million, predominantly for silver investments, in the last four years. Wilson allegedly told securities investigators in South Carolina that he had some $16.9 million of his customers’ silver in a Delaware depository. But the attorney general’s complaint says that the depository has no records of Wilson, Wilson’s company or the silver. The complaint alleges that when customers asked to cash out, there was no silver in their accounts or the accounts had been altered. ( continue to full post… )

The Rebel Brigade Knights of the Ku Klux Klan are planning a rally in Harrison County this weekend. The group has members in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania. Imperial Klaliff Chris Barker told WAJR-FM’s Morning Edition Wednesday the group has a growing West Virginia chapter.

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Residents in New Castle County, Del., have reported that the Ku Klux Klan is actively recruiting new members by targeting predominantly white neighborhoods in Newport, an area southwest of Wilmington. According to reports, a Klan group is leaving calling cards in sandwich bags filled with rocks that they throw out of car windows onto lawns and driveways.

A Miami-Dade County Fire Rescue employee alleges he is the victim of a hate crime. Upon arriving for work Aug. 28, 2011, Miguel Rodriguez alleges he found an unsigned note on his locker.  The note contained anti-black and anti-Latino racial slurs and a threat if Rodriguez were to return to his shift. Rodriguez reported several other incidents of harassment last year. County authorities are investigating the alleged incident.

Perhaps the time has come to state the obvious.

The people who have been selling claims that President Obama is not American — the Donald Trumps, the Orly Taitzes, the miserable state legislators hawking their snake-oil laws insisting that presidential candidates prove their citizenship — are mostly a pack of racists. In the cases where they are not, they are shameless opportunists perfectly willing to exploit racism for their own personal benefit, proponents of a second Republican “Southern strategy.”

And let’s not give a pass to the 25% of Americans who a Harris poll found last month believe Obama was not born in this country despite endless knockdowns by serious news organizations. Common sense — along with an important new study revealing the high levels of racism among those who make such claims — make it obvious what’s going on here. These people are either plainly stupid, or, far more often, whites who see Obama as the Other, the dark-skinned person who represents a racially changing society that they loathe and fear and resent. ( continue to full post… )

Former neo-Nazi leader Bill White will spend 2½ years in prison for threatening his perceived enemies.

U.S. District Judge James Turk sentenced White to 30 months on each of three counts, according to a federal court filing. The sentences will be served at the same time, with credit for time served. The judge also imposed three years of supervised release.

According to The Roanoke Times, Turk said he doesn’t often sentence defendants at the upper end of federal guidelines but thought White deserved the lengthier sentence for terrorizing some of his victims. The newspaper quoted Turk telling White that upon his release from prison, “You can have any thoughts you want to have, but you ought to keep them to yourself.”

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Militant anti-abortion activist Michael Bray is reaching out to Kenyans on a new website targeting abortion providers and gay rights activists with ties to the country. In his endorsement of ProjectSEE.com, he rejects the view of “racists” who thought Africa was “hopelessly backwards because it was occupied by an inferior racial group.” Rather, Bray argues, the West’s cultural superiority resulted from its embrace of Christianity, which was only later introduced to Africa. “It [is] perhaps Africa which shall be the beacon for the world in the new century as Christianity’s influence is increased in contrast to its departure from the west,” he wrote. “ProjectSEE.com [SEE stands for Stop Exporting Evil!] exhorts Kenyans to resist the evil influences of an apostatizing West which has abandoned the Lord of Glory, the King above all kings.”

Bray’s rejection of racism might raise eyebrows in light of his appearance two years ago as a guest on “The Political Cesspool,” a shamelessly white nationalist radio talk show that often denigrates those of African descent. Prior to Bray’s interview, Cesspool host James Edwards had, for example, called blacks “heathen savages,” “subhumans” and “black animals” while discussing violent black-on-white crime. In an April 4, 2007, debut on CNN, Edwards told host Paula Zahn that “crime and violence follow African-Americans wherever they go.” In the month before Bray’s Oct. 12, 2007, “Cesspool” appearance, the show featured favorable interviews with former Klan attorney Sam Dickson, Holocaust denier Mark Weber, and former Klan leader and neo-Nazi David Duke, a “Cesspool” regular whom Edwards on his website described as “a Christian man above reproach.” ( continue to full post… )

A leading anti-abortion webmaster who is widely known for his extremist tactics is behind a new Internet site taking aim at gay and abortion rights supporters with ties to Kenya.

Neal Horsley — best known for his “Nuremberg Files” website targeting physicians who provide abortions — now controls ProjectSEE.com. (“SEE” stands for Stop Exporting Evil!) Horsley’s latest website features “Not Wanted” posters with the photographs and, in some cases, contact information of purported gay rights activists and abortion providers working in Kenya. It lists the names of others, along with an appeal to “send us INFO!” The website encourages readers to print out the posters and distribute them in the United States and Kenya. (Abortion laws are highly restrictive in Kenya and homosexual activity is illegal. In recent weeks, Kenyan activists have reported a rash of anti-gay violence, including the Feb. 12 beating of a man outside a health center that provides HIV/AIDS services, according to Human Rights Watch.)

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