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… )

Michael Hill, we hardly knew ye.

Sure, we remember how, as early as 2000, you already were denigrating your black former students at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Ala., to your friends, mocking their “humorous” names and offering up sensitive jokes like this one: “A quote from a recent affirmative action hire: ‘Yesta-day I could not spell secretary.’ Today I is one.’” Ha! We know all about your 2007 essay, aimed at members of the League of the South hate group you started in 1994, saying that they should quit being afraid of being called “racist” and other, as you put it, “meaningless epithets.”

But, heck, we were still thinking you were just a garden-variety bigot, a rude jerk who’s too dumb to keep his diarrhea-spouting mouth shut. ( continue to full post… )

Conservatives tend to object when the gay rights movement is compared to the civil rights movement, often claiming that LGBT activists are trying to “hijack” a unique moment in American history.

It had been our impression here at Hatewatch that this objection was underpinned by an antipathy toward being compared to racist reactionaries who protested desegregation, the end of laws barring mixed-race marriage, and the other triumphs of the civil rights movement.

So it’s a little mystifying that in the last two weeks, two prominent anti-gay activists have compared their crusade to the Civil War – and themselves to the Confederacy. ( continue to full post… )

This Friday, a far-right religious activist who co-authored a repulsive apologia for Southern slavery and argues that women were created to be “dependent and responsive” to men, will speak on sexuality and the Bible at Indiana University, Bloomington. Invited by a campus Christian group, Douglas Wilson’s impending visit to this major university has set off something of a local firestorm.

Wilson, who runs a religious empire in Moscow, Idaho, that includes a church, a college, a lower school, and a right-wing religious press, is best known for his 1996 book, Southern Slavery, As It Was, written with another far-right pastor. “Slavery as it existed in the South … was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence,” it claims. “There has never been a multiracial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world. … Slave life was to them [slaves] a life of plenty, of food, clothes and good medical care.” ( continue to full post… )

Yesterday evening, Secret Service agents raided former Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) Commander Ron Wilson’s business. They seized silver, files and computers from Atlantic Bullion & Coin, according to the Anderson, S.C., Independent Mail. The agents also seized items from his daughter Alison Shaum’s business, which is located next door.

Wilson is accused by the South Carolina’s attorney general in a civil suit of running a massive Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors in his company. So far, no one has been charged in the scheme.

On Thursday morning, the doors to Wilson’s business were locked and dozens of angry investors were outside. The Anderson paper reported that Wilson drove out of the back of the building and veered toward a group of reporters, but did not hit them.

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… )

An Alaska man who is challenging President Barack Obama’s eligibility for office on the grounds that the president is a “mulatto” based his complaint on an argument common to the neo-Confederate and antigovernment “sovereign citizen” movements, Hatewatch has learned.

In a complaint filed Tuesday with the Alaska Division of Elections, Gordon Warren Epperly of Juneau argued that Obama isn’t eligible for office because, as a person of mixed-race descent, he is not a “natural-born citizen” of the United States. ( continue to full post… )

A Georgia administrative law judge has left in place a subpoena directing President Obama to appear at a hearing on Thursday regarding a “birther” complaint challenging the president’s eligibility for office.

Deputy Chief Judge Michael Malihi issued his decision Friday, writing that the president’s legal team “failed to enlighten the court with any legal authority” to back up its argument that no U.S. president should be compelled to attend a court hearing. They also failed to prove that attending the hearing would be “unreasonable and oppressive” and that the president’s testimony would be “irrelevant, immaterial or cumulative,” he wrote.

Orly Taitz, who filed one of the complaints and has for years led the farcical battle to prove that the president is constitutionally unqualified for office, called Malihi’s decision a “major victory.” ( continue to full post… )

The birther movement, which has bedeviled President Obama since well before his inauguration with questions about his citizenship, is celebrating something of a watershed moment as it prepares to have a day in court.

Earlier this month, Deputy Chief Judge Michael Malihi in Georgia’s Office of State Administrative Hearings denied a motion from the Obama campaign to dismiss four complaints seeking to remove the president’s name from the state’s Democratic primary ballot in March. The decision ultimately cleared the way for a procedural hearing on the challenges.

“I can’t believe this,” Orly Taitz, an attorney who filed one of the complaints, exclaimed on her blog. “[Obama] will have to stand trial to prove his eligibility for office.” ( continue to full post… )