Southern Poverty Law Center Indicted For Wire Fraud
The U.S. Department of Justice announced earlier this week that it has secured an indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center for wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.
According to the DOJ, “Between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC secretly funneled more than $3 million in donated funds to individuals who were associated with various violent extremist groups including the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and National Socialist Party of America.”
The U.S. Attorney’s office for the Middle District of Alabama is also seeking to recover proceeds from the SPLC’s alleged fraud scheme.
The SPLC claims it stands as a “beacon of hope, fighting white supremacy,” making the allegations that it paid racist groups inconsistent with its mission.
Nevertheless, the federal grand jury indictment states the SPLC began operating a network of informants in the 1980s. Between 2014 and 2023, the DOJ alleges the SPLC paid informants at least $3 million to promote racist groups while it denounced those same groups on its website.
According to the indictment, one of the alleged informants, identified as F-37, participated in planning the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where dozens were injured and one person was killed. This informant is said to have been paid $270,000.
In order to conceal its alleged payments, the DOJ claims the SPLC opened bank accounts under the names of fictitious entities in order to disguise the source of payments to informants. Some of the fictitious groups named in the indictment were Center Investigative Agency, Fox Photography, and Rare Books Warehouse.
“The SPLC is manufacturing racism to justify its existence,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a press release. “Using donor money to allegedly profit off Klansmen cannot go unchecked. This Department of Justice will hold the SPLC and every other fraudulent organization operating with the same deceptive playbook accountable. No entity is above the law.”
The SPLC has denied the charges.
“We are outraged by the false allegations levied against SPLC — an organization that for 55 years has stood as a beacon of hope fighting white supremacy and various forms of injustice to create a multi-racial democracy where we can all live and thrive,” SPLC interim CEO and President Bryan Fair said, according to The Hill.
Designated “Hate Groups” Respond to Indictment
In 2000, the SPLC introduced its “Hate Map” and has designated several Christian ministries as hate groups, including the Family Research Council and Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins called the indictment a “welcome development, especially if it marks the beginning of the end of its long pattern of misrepresentation and harm” caused by the “hate group” designation.
“Our own organization…experienced this firsthand when a gunman entered our building over a decade ago, citing SPLC’s materials. We’ve talked with the FBI to help them understand how these designations have real-world consequences,” Perkins added. “That’s why this moment matters. Accountability should not stop with individual convictions. If wrongdoing is proven, justice should include restitution to those harmed. With over $750 million in their endowment which includes offshore accounts, the SPLC should be held responsible not only for what was done, but for the damage left behind.”
ADF’s Senior Vice President Jeremy Tedesco called the indictment “big news.”
“This strikes a serious blow to the censorship industrial complex in the United States, as the SPLC has long been a central player in that ecosystem. But the fight is far from over,” Tedesco added.
He warned that the SPLC has “exported its model overseas in recent years.”
According to Tedesco, Heidi Beirich, who was the SPLC “Hate Map chief,” co-founded the GPAHE project in 2020 — which stands for Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.
“That organization is part of a growing network of NGOs shaping how governments — particularly in Europe — approach the regulation of ‘extremism’ and ‘hate’ online,” Tedesco said.
ADF praised FBI Director Kash Patel for cutting ties with the SPLC in October 2025 after Charlie Kirk’s murder.
The group had labeled Kirk’s Turning Point USA a hate group, claiming its “primary strategy is sowing and exploiting fear that white Christian supremacy is under attack by nefarious actors, including immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community and civil rights activists.”
The FBI had been using the SPLC “Hate Map” since 2007 “to inform its analysis of domestic extremism and hate crimes,” ADF said.
In a letter to Vince Haley, director of the Domestic Policy Council, ADF and other groups wrote, “The SPLC has now become so biased, politicized, and unmoored from its original mission that it has begun placing traditional value and faith-based organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom, Moms for Liberty, Liberty Counsel, and the Family Research Council on its Hate Map.”
CharityWatch gives the SPLC an “F” rating for having six years of available assets in reserve. It also spends about $22 to raise $100 in donations.
According to an article originally published in Harper’s, the SPLC regularly shares news of “extremism” and “hate groups” to raise money, even though groups like the Ku Klux Klan have diminished in membership from millions in the 1920s to only a few thousand today.
“Back in 1978, when the Center had less than $10 million, Dees promised that his organization would quit fund-raising and live off interest as soon as its endowment hit $55 million,” the article said. “But as it approached that figure, the SPLC upped the bar to $100 million, a sum that, one 1989 newsletter promised, would allow the Center ‘to cease the costly and often unreliable task of fund raising.’”
This article was originally published by MinistryWatch.
Kim Roberts is a freelance writer who holds a Juris Doctorate with honors from Baylor University and an undergraduate degree in government from Angelo State University. She has three young adult children who were home schooled and is happily married to her husband of 28 years.