The leader of a white supremacy group will undergo a psychiatric evaluation to determine whether he is a threat to the Roanoke community.

U.S. District Court Judge James Turk ordered the evaluation Tuesday as part of a bond hearing for William A. White.

The decision means White will remain in jail until at least Friday, when court officials hope to have a report from the psychiatrist.

White, the self-proclaimed commander of the American National Socialist Workers Party, is charged with threatening about a half-dozen people by e-mail, telephone or online.

Federal prosecutors say White should be held without bond, citing a number of postings on his Web site in which he wrote of his urge to "kill, kill, kill," his development of a list of people to target, and the sense of euphoria he once felt while choking a man nearly to death in a street fight.

Defense attorneys have characterized White's writings as nothing more than hyperbole, noting that no harm has come to anyone he targeted on his Web site.

At the hearing Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Roanoke, Turk said he would be inclined to release White on bond if the evaluation shows he is not a danger to the community.

A psychiatrist who evaluated White last year in Chicago, where he first faced charges, found that the 32-year-old did not pose a threat.

White was diagnosed as having a personality disorder that included histrionic and narcissistic features. According to Dr. James Corcoran, White often posted disturbing writings to his Web site as a way of seeking the attention that he so desperately craves.

However, Corcoran wrote in his report, "Mr. White does not appear to be psychiatrically unstable or dangerous to the community at large."

Federal prosecutors have said Corcoran's evaluation did not delve deeply enough into White's mental state. But it was not until Tuesday, at Turk's urging, that a second opinion was sought.

White has been in jail since October, when he was charged with encouraging violence against the foreman of a Chicago jury that convicted a fellow neo-Nazi.

A judge dismissed that charge, ruling that White's actions were protected by the First Amendment. White is expected to raise the same free-speech defense to the charges he faces in Roanoke.