laurence.hammack@roanoke.com 981-3239

A Roanoke civil rights group is seeking a federal investigation into complaints that a city landlord with neo-Nazi beliefs is discriminating against minority tenants.

Brenda Hale, president of the Roanoke NAACP branch, said Tuesday she was recently notified that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has agreed to investigate a complaint filed against William A. White.

White, who according to the Southern Poverty Law Center runs the second-most popular racist Web site on the Internet, owns at least eight rental homes in the West End neighborhood. Critics say he bought the homes with the intention of excluding blacks and other minorities as part of his so-called "ghetto beautification project."

According to Hale, HUD has assigned an investigator in Richmond to determine whether White is violating the Fair Housing Act. HUD officials declined to comment on the case.

Although White did not return a call Tuesday, the complaint was recently mentioned on his Web site.

An article posted on Overthrow.com stated that White "laughed off a complaint brought against him ... by Brenda Hale of the Roanoke NAACP alleging racial discrimination, pointing out that the form had been filled out incorrectly and that, even should some white person show her how to fill out the form properly, that no discrimination has taken place, that she, personally, is an idiot, and that the complaint is so ridiculous and [sic] to be laughed off on its face."

The article portrays the complaint against White as the latest in a series of "very public attacks on him by communist Jews, their black henchmen and the local carpetbagger press."

Hale said comments by White - both on his Web site and to tenants in person - were recently brought to the attention of the NAACP.

"Mr. White has said some very hateful things on his Web site," Hale said. "It seems like things are escalating."

Following an investigation by the local NAACP's housing committee, the organization decided to file a complaint with HUD, Hale said. She declined to say who initially made the complaints to the NAACP.

Lee Jones, a spokesman in HUD's Richmond office, said the agency does not usually comment on investigations. "We're simply in a position legally to protect the confidentiality of the person complaining and the person complained against," he said.

However, Jones said parties in the case are free to say whatever they want about the process.

The Fair Housing Act, which is part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibits discrimination in the sale, renting and financing of homes. When a complaint is first filed with HUD, the agency's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity tries to mediate the dispute.

If a resolution is not reached and HUD finds reasonable cause that discrimination occurred, a case can go to an administrative law judge.

Hale said the NAACP's complaint accuses White of discrimination in three ways: evicting tenants; filing unwarranted criminal charges against them; and making slanderous comments about them both in person and on his Web site.

On his Web site, White maintains that the NAACP has no standing to make a complaint against him because he has never rented to the group.

"While the complaint rants about my alleged 'racist' views, at no point does it specify any particular party who faced any specific act of racial discrimination," White wrote in what he called a "rough draft" of his response to HUD that was posted on his Web site.

White and his company, White Homes and Land, have gone to court to evict three tenants in recent months, according to records in General District Court. Although the records do not indicate the race of parties, White said on his Web site that two of three people he evicted for nonpayment of rent were white.

"The housing units owned by my company and I are populated primarily with white tenants, with some bi-racial families," White's response to HUD states. According to city land records, White owns eight houses in the 1500 and 1600 blocks of Chapman and Patterson avenues in Southwest Roanoke.

Earlier this year, White was convicted of assaulting a woman who was circulating fliers in the neighborhood that read: "Meet your local racist."

White appealed the conviction and the case was dropped after the victim, Erica Hardwick-Hoesch, failed to show up in court. But due to a scheduling mix-up that day, the case may be reinstated, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney John McNeil said.CUT FOR SPACE:

Meanwhile, a group that includes White among 40 white supremacists listed on its Web site continues to monitor his activities.

"I would describe Bill White as a straight-up neo-Nazi," said Mark Potok, director of the intelligence project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based group that monitors hate groups.

"He is being utterly disingenuous in describing himself as someone who would not discriminate," Potok said. "This is a guy who has spent the past several years doing nothing but attacking Jews and black people."