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[Hale gets 40 years for plot to kill judge]

Hale gets 40 years for plot to kill judge

Chicago Tribune (IL) - April 7, 2005
Author: Matt O'Connor, Tribune staff reporter.
White supremacist Matthew Hale was sentenced to 40 years in prison Wednesday by a federal judge who called him "extremely dangerous" and said his solicitation to murder U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow was "an extreme, egregious attack against the rule of law."

Hale, his voice often cracking with emotion, maintained his innocence during a rambling, two-hour speech, accusing the government of manufacturing evidence, his former lawyer of incompetence and the news media of defaming him.

At times almost theatrical in his long monologue, Hale quoted from Thomas Jefferson, recalled how his father, a retired police officer, instilled in him a respect for the law, and ended his remarks by reciting a few lines from "The Star-Spangled Banner."

"I hope the day will come when Judge Lefkow knows this is a lie," said Hale, acting as his own attorney, in a court ringed with security. "This is a horrible miscarriage of justice."

But U.S. District Judge James T. Moody was unswayed and found--for the first time in Chicago's federal court--that Hale's solicitation to murder Lefkow was a crime of terrorism under federal sentencing guidelines.

Moody then imposed the maximum 40-year term, saying Hale's wrongdoing "undermines the judiciary's central role in our society and strikes at the very core of our system of government."

A federal jury convicted Hale last April of soliciting his security chief, secretly working undercover for the FBI, to kill Lefkow because she ordered his supremacist group to change its name after losing a trademark-infringement lawsuit.

Moody said Hale surrounded himself with troubled individuals to "feed his enormous ego" and manipulated them "to do his dirty work."

"Mr. Hale had absolutely no qualms about taking the life of Judge Lefkow and others as long as he could appear to not be involved and had credible deniability," said Moody, a Hammond jurist who presided over the trial because of the inherent conflicts of interest among Lefkow's colleagues in Chicago.

Hale, 33, of Downstate East Peoria, faces at least 34 years in prison before he would be eligible for release.

Lonnie Nasatir, Midwest regional director for the Anti-Defamation League, said the long sentence for the "charismatic" Hale likely represents a crushing blow for his group, now called the Creativity Movement.

The sentence devastated Hale's parents. Outside the courtroom, his mother, Evelyn Hutcheson, challenged a reporter to "actually tell what Matt said in there because Matt is the only one in that damn [court] room that spoke the truth."

"It's a very sad day for me," she said later.

At Hale's request, Moody recommended that he remain at the Metropolitan Correctional Center for six months to assist in his appeal, then be transferred to the federal prison in Pekin to be close to family.

But attorney Thomas A. Gibbons, who is assisting Hale, said he believes it's likely Hale will end up in a maximum-security prison, perhaps in Florence, Colo., because of the length of the sentence, the nature of his conviction and the fact he is incarcerated under special administrative measures usually reserved for terrorist suspects.

Gibbons said he expects a major issue in the appeal would be Moody's decision to allow some testimony at trial about the shooting spree of Hale follower Benjamin Smith in 1999. Smith targeted minorities, killing two, including former Northwestern basketball coach Ricky Byrdsong, and injuring nine others.

In his remarks, Hale claimed that on a key undercover tape in which the informant, Tony Evola, asked if he wanted to "exterminate the rat," the two were discussing a male Jewish lawyer involved in the trademark lawsuit, not Lefkow.

Hale maintained that authorities realized the problem, because four days later, Evola sent him an e-mail discussing going after the "female rat."

"The only person in my church who ever talked about violence was Tony Evola," said Hale, the self-proclaimed Pontifex Maximus of the former World Church of the Creator. "He did it so many times I got used to it."

Hale went so far as to suggest that the government's fabricated case against him may have inspired Bart Ross to kill Lefkow's husband and mother in late February. The judge had thrown out Ross' medical malpractice lawsuit last fall.

Lefkow didn't attend Wednesday's sentencing, but U.S. Atty. Patrick J. Fitzgerald later called Hale's accusation "offensive" and "stupid" and derided his claims of innocence, referring to his "crocodile tears" during his courtroom remarks.

Fitzgerald said he believes the special administrative measures should remain imposed on Hale, saying he remains a danger to solicit others to do harm.

"I think anyone who seeks to kill by using their words to encourage others poses a threat," Fitzgerald told reporters.

Hale declared--and authorities later confirmed--that the Metropolitan Correctional Center banned his parents from visiting him for one year. The ban is believed to be connected to his mother delivering a message to the media from Hale during the investigation into the murders of Lefkow's family.

Hale and his followers were the focus of investigators until Ross confessed to the murders in a suicide note.

Hale sought leniency from Moody in part because of the restricted contact he has with family and other inmates as a result of the special administrative measures. "I'd rather be in Siberia," Hale said.

He spoke of the "hell" of solitary confinement, locked up in a small cell 23 hours a day, unable to hear "a bird chirp or see the sun shine or to behold the stars or to hear voices you care about."

"They want me to die in a hole," said Hale, referring to the jailhouse nickname for solitary confinement. "How on Earth could a 40-year sentence be appropriate for this offense? Nobody was hurt."

"I should be going home today," said Hale, incarcerated since early 2003. "I should have gone home a long time ago."

Hale would have faced a maximum of 14 years in prison without Moody's finding that Hale's crime amounted to an act of terrorism, said Gibbons, Hale's standby counsel.

Authorities said Moody's ruling may be only the third time in the country that a judge boosted a sentence because of alleged terrorism ties.

In comments in court, Assistant U.S. Atty. M. David Weisman, who prosecuted Hale, said Hale qualifies as a domestic terrorist. "He is a terrorist because he speaks of violence and applauds violence against racial and religious minorities in this country," Weisman said. "More fundamentally, Matthew Hale is a terrorist because he would have retaliated against an official of our government for her conduct."

As Hale delivered his monologue, three deputy U.S. marshals stood close by and as many as a dozen others were posted elsewhere in the courtroom.

Hale denied he hated Lefkow, noting she had originally ruled in his favor in the trademark lawsuit brought by an Oregon church with a similar name. An appeals court overturned her decision.

Hale, a law school graduage who was denied a license largely because of his racist views, said he wrote the court papers that swayed Lefkow to rule in his favor. "That was one of the best days of my life," he said.

Hale contended he sent an e-mail to followers seeking Lefkow's home address only because he planned to organize a demonstration outside her home if she held him in contempt for violating the court order to change his group's name.

"There's a heck of a difference between a street demonstration and a murder," Hale said.

But in his ruling, Moody said that days earlier, Hale had issued another e-mail to followers that called Lefkow's ruling "a sick, draconian order that in effect places our church in a state of war with this federal judge."

If the church's constitutional rights were violated, "we can then treat them like the criminal dogs they are and take the law into our own hands," Hale wrote. "It will be open war on the Jews."

- - -

U.S. District Judge James T. Moody in sentencing

Matthew Hale to 40 years in prison:

"Mr. Hale is a highly educated, intelligent individual who

surrounds himself with troubled individuals who feed

his enormous ego. He is also very calculating and highly

skilled in controlling and manipulating others . . . .

Mr. Hale's irrational belief that Judge Lefkow's ruling

represented the use of force and that he could then declare

her a criminal and ask others to murder her is not only

frightening and troubling, but it undermines the judiciary's

central role in our society and strikes at the very core of our

system of government. It is imperative that judges be able

to perform their duties without fear of reprisal from people like

Mr. Hale attempting to take their lives. I consider Mr. Hale to

be extremely dangerous and the offenses for which he

stands convicted to be an extreme, egregious attack

against the rule of law in the United States. Mr. Hale's

conduct impacts the very fabric of our judicial system and the

ability of judges to function in a safe environment."

Chicago Tribune
Caption: PHOTOS 3 GRAPHIC
PHOTO (color): "How on Earth could a 40-year sentence be appropriate for this offense? Nobody was hurt." -- Matthew Hale . Courtroom illustration for the Tribune by Carol Renaud. PHOTO: ( Matthew) Hale . PHOTO (color): Russell Hale (center) and Evelyn Hutcheson, parents of Matthew Hale , leave federal court Wednesday with Hale's brother, Mark. Tribune photo by Zbigniew Bzdak.
Edition: Chicago Final
Section: News
Page: 1
Index Terms: SENTENCE ; FEDERAL ; COURT ; TEXT
Record Number: CTR0504070253
Copyright (c) 2005, Chicago Tribune Company. All rights reserved.

[Stiffer sentence sought for Hale - U.S. prosecutors say plot to kill judge was a crime of terrorism]

Stiffer sentence sought for Hale - U.S. prosecutors say plot to kill judge was a crime of terrorism

Chicago Tribune (IL) - March 24, 2005
Author: Matt O'Connor, Tribune staff reporter.
White supremacist Matthew Hale , convicted last year of soliciting the murder of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow, should get a stiffened sentence because he committed a crime of terrorism, prosecutors argued Wednesday in a court filing two weeks before his sentencing.

Prosecutors didn't disclose what sentence they will seek for Hale but said he faces up to 40 years in prison by statute. If prosecutors succeed, Hale will be the first defendant in Chicago's federal court to have his sentence boosted for committing a crime of terrorism.

In 2003, prosecutors sought as much as 20 years in prison for Enaam Arnaout, a former Islamic charity boss, because of his alleged terrorism ties, but a federal judge found the evidence insufficient. Arnaout had pleaded guilty to funneling relief money to Islamic fighters in Bosnia and Chechnya. He was sentenced to 11 years and 4 months in prison.

A federal jury convicted Hale last April of soliciting his security chief, who was secretly working with the FBI, to kill Lefkow because of her 2002 order to change the name of his group after it lost a trademark-infringement suit.

Hale, who has been jailed since his arrest in early 2003, is scheduled to be sentenced on April 6.

On Feb. 28, Lefkow's husband, Michael, and mother, Donna Humphrey, were found slain in the basement of the Lefkow house. As a result of his conviction for soliciting Lefkow's murder, Hale and his followers were the focus of investigators until Bart Ross, whose medical malpractice lawsuit had been thrown out by Lefkow, confessed to the murders in a suicide note.

In Wednesday's court filing, Assistant U.S. Atty. M. David Weisman said the government will seek to boost Hale's sentence because federal sentencing guidelines make clear that his solicitation of Judge Lefkow's murder "was a crime of terrorism."

Under the guidelines, the killing or attempted killing of "officers and employees of the United States" can constitute a federal crime of terrorism, the government said.

U.S. District Judge James T. Moody, brought in from Indiana to preside over the trial, will impose the sentence.

In court papers, Hale has contended he should be sentenced to no more than 8 years in prison. He also is seeking a sentence reduction because of the extraordinary conditions of his confinement.

Since shortly after his arrest, Hale has been in a federal jail in the South Loop under special administrative measures usually reserved for terrorist suspects. His contact with visitors and other inmates is limited, the government said in its filing.
Edition: Chicago Final
Section: Metro
Page: 3
Index Terms: MURDER ; COURT ; OFFICIAL ; ATTEMPT ; ARREST ; CULT ; RIGHTS ; SENTENCE
Record Number: CTR0503240293
Copyright (c) 2005, Chicago Tribune Company. All rights reserved.

[Lefkow killer doesn't fit our need for symbols]

Lefkow killer doesn't fit our need for symbols

Chicago Tribune (IL) - March 11, 2005
Author: John Kass.
You probably don't like to jump to conclusions in homicide cases, either.

But I bet nobody figured that the killer in the Lefkow slayings would turn out to be some crazed Polish electrician with mouth cancer and a grudge.

Instead, many of us thought of the obvious, of young white men, skinny and hateful and poor, with a thing for leather, scrawling swastikas on their shoulders with markers, stacks of magazines under their beds, porn and Soldier of Fortune, speaking with a twang.

"No one would have figured it," a Chicago police detective told me. "[Investigators] had nothing. If he didn't kill himself, if he didn't draw attention to himself with the notes, he'd probably still be out there."

The electrician seems so ludicrous after so many white supremacist theories that it was unsettling. Not as unsettling as the slayings themselves, but almost.

Because the killer of the husband and mother of U.S. District Court Judge Joan Lefkow was supposed to be a white supremacist.

Isn't that so?

That's what was expected. But it didn't happen.

It must have been jarring for many, the news that the killer is not some creepy ideologue, but a lonely, angry man raging against Judge Lefkow because she tossed out his medical malpractice suit.

Bart Ross, who lived on the North Side with his dog and cat, claimed responsibility for the Feb. 28 slayings of Michael Lefkow and Donna Humphrey. He wrote at least two notes of confession and described how he killed them.

He sent one note to the NBC news station in Chicago. He had another with him in his car when he drove to Milwaukee. A local cop stopped him for a minor traffic violation, and Ross decided to put a bullet into his own brain.

The news was disappointing. Most folks weren't ready for something this random. They weren't properly prepared. No one was. How could we have been?

The drumbeat was all about the supremacists. The politics lined up neatly, along with all the theories. And there was this key fact: The deadly white supremacist Matthew Hale was already awaiting sentencing on charges that he conspired to have Lefkow killed.

So it was Matthew Hale this and Matthew Hale that, and white supremacists this and white supremacists that. That was a natural connection to make, and it had to be investigated. But those outside the investigation, those speculating, had proper political cover.

It also fit our need to make the killings of the family of a federal judge something worthy of the deed. It had to be linked to someone like Hale; someone tied to a bitter ideological vine, because by then the victims themselves had also been transformed. They'd become symbols for what is decent.

And it wouldn't do if some babbling maniac wiped out decency. That would leave too much to chance and not enough to reason. Most of us are reasonable people. So it had to be a supremacist.

Then reality showed up and ruined the movie.

It also eclipsed the Big Speech.

The Big Speech is what I call that monologue that concludes a TV crime drama. The Big Speech is given by actors who play a detective or prosecuting attorney or judge, and they speak in a weary voice as prescribed by the cliche. I suppose we should throw in real news people, since we often make the Big Speech, too, although we play ourselves.

The Big Speech in the Lefkow case was so tempting; a few couldn't help but make it before anyone was charged with the crimes. Those who came later would have struck the same tone.

We would have all denounced the racism of the haters and stood confidently on the side of angels. We would have each felt very good about ourselves, wagging our fingers at Hale, comfortable with the moral of the story.

There has to be a moral, at least in bad fiction written by people who probably should know better. It is the lesson, the why. That's the Big Speech.

"That's why I never watch detective shows," the detective told me Thursday, as we talked about the Lefkow case, as we had been doing for several days.

"You know those shows," he said. "First the victim is killed, then there's a commercial, you get a sandwich and at the end, you get a guilty verdict and the boss says something snappy and then another commercial. You don't watch reporter shows, do you?"

Of course not.

"OK. A homicide is either simple, cut-and-dried gang stuff, or domestic stuff, and you figure you know who did it, or it takes some weird twists and you have to backtrack it for a long time," he said. "But in those weird ones, you never focus in on one theory. Otherwise, you get tunnel vision."

And you can't make the Big Speech, I said.

"Whatever," he said.

----------

jskass@tribune.com
Edition: Chicago Final
Section: News
Page: 2
Record Number: CTR0503110216
Copyright (c) 2005, Chicago Tribune Company. All rights reserved.

[Lefkow tie to suicide is probed]

Lefkow tie to suicide is probed

Chicago Tribune (IL) - March 10, 2005
A man who shot himself in the head after a traffic stop in Wisconsin on Wednesday was found wearing a suicide note that included an admission that he shot Judge Joan Lefkow's husband and mother, investigators handling the case said.

Members of the task force of Chicago police and federal agents said they were investigating whether the man was responsible for the deaths of the judge's family last week.

Lt. Chuck Padgett of the West Allis Police Department confirmed that a man pulled over in a van for a taillight problem shot himself in the head about 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Members of the task force and federal agents said the man shot himself as officers approached the car. Officials said the claims in the note included details in the case not made public.

Shells from a .22-caliber weapon were found in the car, and three casings of the same caliber were found in Lefkow's home.

Officials had considered a possible tie to white supremacist Matthew Hale , whom Judge Lefkow ruled against. But sources close to the case said they were investigating whether the judge had ruled in a civil case against the man who killed himself.

He was not immediately thought to have ties to hate groups.

Officials said the note seemed to indicate the man had suffered because of the judgment, which may have cost him "his house, his job and family," one source said.
Edition: Chicago Final
Section: News
Page: 1
Index Terms: PROBE ; CHICAGO ; FEDERAL ; OFFICIAL ; FAMILY ; MURDER ; SUICIDE ; WISCONSIN
Record Number: CTR0503100294
Copyright (c) 2005, Chicago Tribune Company. All rights reserved.

[Hale's church wins trademark suit]

Hale's church wins trademark suit

Chicago Tribune - February 1, 2002
A federal judge dismissed Thursday a trademark-infringement lawsuit filed against the World Church of the Creator, led by white supremacist Matthew Hale of Downstate East Peoria.

The 2000 suit by TE-TA-MA Truth Foundation, more commonly known as Church of the Creator, contended the similar names and trademarks created the mistaken impression that their church endorses Hale's racist message.

But in a 16-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow found the church names "generic" and said that "neither can lay claim to it as their own."

In a statement, Hale said he would seek to have the plaintiff's attorneys pay more than $10,000 in legal fees incurred by his church in the case and vowed to use the money "to continue building our racist religious movement."

Edition: Southwest Final
Section: Metro
Page: 4
Index Terms: RELIGION ; CULT ; RIGHTS ; LAWSUIT ; DECISION ; COMPARISON ; GROUP
Record Number: CTR0202010152
Copyright 2002, Chicago Tribune