A former director at the Southern Poverty Law Center was arrested for allegedly overseeing secret payments to informants from white supremacist groups, federal authorities said Wednesday.
Heidi Beirich, who once tracked hate groups for the SPLC, was indicted in Alabama for her alleged role in the scheme and self-surrendered in California, according to a person familiar with the matter. Her indictment is part of a larger federal case involving the SPLC and its alleged financial crimes.
The Trump administration secured an indictment against the civil-rights group earlier this year on accusations the group paid informants using bank accounts connected to fake companies. Prosecutors said that between 2007 and 2023, the SPLC funneled at least $3 million in donor funds to pay informants in extremist groups including the Ku Klux Klan . A federal grand jury indicted Beirich for participating in an alleged scheme to conceal the source of the funds.
"As alleged, I believe she was part of the effort to open bank accounts in completely fictitious companies' names and make payments to individuals for reasons that were not accurate as described," Attorney General Todd Blanche said Wednesday. CNN first reported Beirich's arrest.
The nonprofit organization that made its name fighting the KKK has become a popular target of Republicans who accuse it of unfairly maligning Christian and conservative groups by labeling them as extremists. The latest indictment comes as the Trump administration has sought to target left-leaning groups and correct what it calls the Biden administration's anticonservative bias.
The grand jury indicted Beirich, a 59-year-old in Palm Springs, Calif., on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank, prosecutors said. She could face decades in prison if convicted.
She is set to appear in a California federal court on Wednesday. A court in Alabama, where the SPLC is based, unsealed her charges the day after her Tuesday indictment.
The SPLC and lawyers for the group didn't immediately return requests for comment Wednesday.
The SPLC has said in court filings that its now-defunct informant network helped it gather information on extremist groups. Fraud convictions could sink the antiracism nonprofit, known for its courtroom wins against the Klan decades ago.
Beirich left the SPLC in 2019 after two decades tracking whit- supremacy and far-right movements, according to her LinkedIn profile. She testified before Congress in 2020 on white supremacy in the military.
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