politics
DOJ Indicts Southern Poverty Law Center on 11 Counts of Wire Fraud and Money Laundering
The U.S. Justice Department announced fraud charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center, alleging it defrauded donors by using funds to pay informants in white supremacist groups. The 11-count indictment includes wire fraud and money laundering accusations. SPLC officials denied the claims, calling them a mischaracterization of their anti-extremism work.
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The Justice Department announced fraud charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center on April 21, 2026, accusing the organization of defrauding donors through payments to informants in white supremacist groups. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche alleged at an April 21, 2026, news conference that the Southern Poverty Law Center defrauded donors by using their money to pay informants within white supremacist groups.
Blanche said at the news conference, 'The SPLC was not dismantling these groups.
A 14-page indictment contains evidence presented publicly against the Southern Poverty Law Center. The grand jury indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center on 11 counts. DOJ spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre said the grand jury heard only a portion of the evidence and the government remains confident in its case.
Most of the criminal counts against the SPLC involve alleged wire fraud. The wire fraud counts accuse SPLC of seeking donations to dismantle violent extremist groups without telling donors that more than $3 million over nine years would be used to pay high-level leaders of such groups to be informants.
The indictment says donors were not told that some donations were used to benefit violent extremist groups and were used in committing state and federal crimes, such as an informant stealing and copying documents from a neo-Nazi group.
The indictment charges the SPLC with conspiring to conceal money laundering through transferring donated funds to bank accounts in the names of fictitious entities such as 'Fox Photography' and 'Tech Writers' and masking direct payments to informants with similar monikers.
The indictment includes false statement charges alleging the SPLC had an employee claim sole ownership of fictitiously named bank accounts used to pay informants. The Southern Poverty Law Center is a decades-old Alabama nonprofit dedicated to dismantling white supremacy.
