Whatever White may have done in the past, defense attorney Paul Beers said, his efforts to make a new start are genuine.
“He is an unusual person,” Beers said, “but he’s not the monster he has been portrayed to be [by you, Laurence Hammack] .”
Another article by Hammack, below. I didn’t think the judge said “powerfully lenient”, as reported in the Roanoke Times yesterday. People are powerfully motivated, not powerfully lenient.
The scene in the courtroom, as told by Hammack, is all too weird. I can’t even think of an Alice in Wonderland comparison!
Nobody ever brings up the $800,000 plus judgement Turk ordered Bill to pay in the civil suit, anymore. Not even Bill! But, my view is, if there was a good reason for Bill to head for Mexico, that was it.
Article
Bill White gets 10 months for fleeing to Mexico
The judge, saying he was being “awfully lenient,” expressed hope for the neo-Nazi.
By Laurence Hammack
981-3239
William White
William White
An uncharacteristically contrite William A. White was sentenced to 10 months in prison Wednesday for violating his parole by fleeing to Mexico, apparently in an effort to escape his legal entanglements as a former neo-Nazi agitator.
“I’m sorry for leaving the country without permission,” White told U.S. District Court Judge James Turk.
With those words, a previously unapologetic racist made perhaps his first public apology after years of using his website and other forums to hurl hateful words at blacks, Jews and others drawn unwillingly into his world of white supremacy.
After completing a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence for making racially charged threats last year, White said, he “tried to abandon the beliefs that led to my prosecution.”
But a poor transition from time in solitary confinement to living in a Rockbridge County house while on parole, combined with what White called “irrational thinking on my part,” led him to flee the country in May.
At the time of his unauthorized trip to Mexico — which White admitted was a violation of his supervised release — he was scheduled to appear in court for a resentencing.
Although White gave no reason for his sudden departure, he acknowledged it was a setback in his efforts to change his ways at the age of 35.
“I tried to start my life over and I went about it the wrong way,” said White, the former leader of a Roanoke-based neo-Nazi group. “I’d like a chance to try to do it again.”
Turk, who was urged by federal prosecutors to give White a six-year term, said he was being “awfully lenient.”
But the judge expressed hope in White, commenting that he had often asked White’s probation officer about his progress and was gratified to hear good reports until May.
Turk said he believed White fled out of fear that he would be sent back to prison at a resentencing on his original charges, ordered by an appeals court that determined sentencing guidelines were not properly followed the first time.
“If he had behaved, I wasn’t going to give him any more time,” Turk said. “But he ran.”
The sentencing hearing, put off after White disappeared, has been rescheduled for Oct. 23.
If White is sincere about turning his life around, he may have a difficult time convincing federal prosecutors of that.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Pat Hogeboom cited several writings from White that turned up on the Internet not long after he jumped parole.
“I left the United States several weeks ago after accepting an offer of asylum from a foreign nation that shares my view that the U.S. government is not legitimate,” White wrote.
“I shall not be returning.”
Not only were those comments a potential violation of a term of White’s parole that barred him from the Internet, Hogeboom said, they also indicated the defendant’s continued lack of respect for the court system.
Hogeboom also cited the fear that remains in Roanoke among people who received hostile emails or Internet postings from White — often just a few carefully selected words short of a threat — when he was the leader of a neo-Nazi group.
White once called the local NAACP president “a n—– in need of lynching.” And he wrote of a plot to murder the city’s “Negro nuisances.”
After hearing that White had gone missing, many people called Hogeboom with concerns. “That’s the legacy he has here,” the prosecutor said.
As the leader of the American National Socialist Workers Party, White briefly gained a national reputation for posting his inflammatory views online.
After serving prison time for threats and intimidation, he was released in April 2011. By then, White’s hate group and the website he used to promote it were defunct.
Four months ago, authorities discovered White was missing. Federal marshals tracked him down to Playa del Carmen, a resort town near Cancun, and apprehended him June 8 in the parking lot of a Walmart. He has been held without bond since.
Hogeboom argued that White’s secret trip to Mexico was “well-planned and orchestrated to make his apprehension difficult.”
“On their face, the defendant’s violations do not appear to be all that serious,” Hogeboom wrote in court papers.
“After all, many a country song has been written about leaving your cares behind to go to Mexico. Although an idyllic and romantic thought, it is doubtful that any of the song writers were referring to Supervised Release as the trouble to leave behind.”
Testimony during Wednesday’s hearing hinted that White’s legal troubles may not be over. Probation officer Mike Price said an investigation into possible new charges is under way. No details were disclosed.
Whatever White may have done in the past, defense attorney Paul Beers said, his efforts to make a new start are genuine.
“He is an unusual person,” Beers said, “but he’s not the monster he has been portrayed to be.”
Bill White Trial Update 