William A. White

Photo courtesy of the Roanoke City Jail

A white supremacist known for his inflammatory Internet postings about race-related issues -- and for his verbal attacks on the people involved in them -- has been charged with threatening a federal juror.

William A. White, head of the Roanoke-based American National Socialist Workers Party, was being held without bond Saturday in the Roanoke jail.

White was arrested late Friday afternoon and charged with obstruction of justice, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Bondurant said.

Bondurant said the charge involves the "threatened use of force" against the foreman of a Chicago jury in the case of Matthew Hale, who was convicted in 2004 of soliciting the murder of a U.S. District Court judge.

At the time, Hale was the leader of the World Church of the Creator, which adhered to some of the same neo-Nazi beliefs as White's organization.

Bondurant declined to comment on the details of the alleged threat, except to say that White's trial will be held in Chicago.

In an interview last week, White said he recently posted information about a juror in the Hale case to his Web site, overthrow.com. White said he included personal information about the juror but made no threats in discussing what he said were his concerns about the fairness of Hale's trial.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama organization that monitors hate groups, said on its Web site last month that White did not directly propose violence against the juror.

It is not clear, however, if the conduct described by both White and the SPLC is related to the federal charge against him.

According to the SPLC blog item, White posted the name, home address and several phone numbers of what he called the "gay, Jewish, anti-racist" juror who helped convict Hale.

In 2005, Hale was sentenced to 40 years in prison for encouraging his head of security, who turned out to be a federal informant, to kill Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow. The judge had ruled against Hale in a trademark infringement case involving the name of his organization.

White "told his readers that the [juror] played a leading role in inciting both the conviction and the harsh sentence that followed," the SPLC blog post states. "He also described the conviction as wrongful and said the prison term handed Hale was a 'criminally long sentence.' "

Mark Potok, director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project, said Thursday that although White has often come close to the line between free speech and criminal activity, he may have finally crossed it by posting personal information about a juror.

Federal authorities are particularly sensitive about protecting jurors in cases such as Hale's, Potok said.

One week ago, FBI agents seized computer equipment from White. Several days later, White posted to a Yahoo message group what he said was a partial copy of the search warrant.

The warrant authorized FBI agents to search a Patterson Avenue building that houses White's online operation. According to the warrant, authorities were looking for computer files and other records "that may contain all evidence of the crime of threatening Hale Juror A."

The warrant also covered "documents, photographs or other information that shows an intent to intimidate or injure persons whose personal information has been posted in the same manor [sic] as Hale Juror A."

White has a penchant for posting the personal information of people whose views or activities run counter to his own neo-Nazi beliefs.

In September 2007, when thousands of people converged on Jena, La., for a civil rights demonstration on behalf of six black teenagers charged with assault, the event caught the attention of overthrow.com.

"Lynch the Jena 6," a headline stated, followed by the home addresses and telephone numbers of the youths, "in case anyone wants to deliver justice."

White also has published the home addresses of Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts, attorneys on the other side of a housing discrimination case he inserted himself into and officials at the SPLC.

In addition, he has used overthrow.com to issue blanket condemnations of an entire race.

In July, he attacked what he called the "respectable n------" in the NAACP and elsewhere in America, according to the SPLC. "I am convinced, more and more each day, that the only solution to the problem is to kill all the n------ involved, preferably with state sponsorship," the post stated. "When the death squads come, line me up as volunteer number one."

More recently, the Web site overthrow.com carried an image of presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, his head in the cross hairs of a rifle sight fashioned into a swastika, along with the headline "Kill This N-----?"

Officials with the U.S. Justice Department's civil rights division in Washington, D.C., have been saying since shortly after the Jena Six case that White is under investigation. It is not clear if the probe includes the Obama material.

White and two other sources have said a federal grand jury has been empaneled in Roanoke to hear testimony against him. The two sources said they had personal knowledge of the grand jury but declined to speak publicly about an investigation going on behind closed doors.

Legal skirmishes are nothing new to White, who moved to Roanoke in 2004 and began to buy inner-city homes in the West End neighborhood for his rental business.

Claims of housing discrimination -- critics once claimed that White planned to exclude blacks from his homes as part of what he called a "ghetto beautification project" -- were investigated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development but produced no charges.

Attorneys who have opposed White in court have twice sought sanctions against him for his heated online rhetoric, but so far he has yet to be cited by a judge.

As for the Hale case, White's recent online commentary about the juror was not the first time he weighed in on that case.

In 2005, after Lefkow's husband and mother were killed in their Chicago home, White wrote on overthrow.com that "I don't feel bad."

"In fact, when I heard the story I laughed," the post continued. " 'Good for them' was my first thought."

In his commentary and an interview at the time, White said he looked forward to future killings of Jews and their sympathizers. He said that he did not encourage violence, but that violence by white supremacists is justified because they are being persecuted for their views.

Since the FBI raid of White's computer operation a week ago, overthrow.com has been down.

In a posting to a Yahoo message group for white supremacists, made either late Thursday night or sometime during the day Friday, someone identifying himself as White said the FBI had just executed a second search warrant, this one on his home.

"They left remarking on how they did not have anything with which to chargesme [sic] and they needed to plan theyre [sic] next step," the post stated.

With White now in jail, the next step will be an initial appearance before a magistrate judge, which is scheduled for this afternoon.