Extremist Sentenced to 25 Years on Weapons Charges

Avowed white supremacist Gary Lee Yarbrough, who agreed with prosecutors that he is a “front-line Aryan warrior,” was sentenced to 25 years in prison Friday for 11 weapons violations.

U.S. District Judge Harold Ryan also sentenced Yarbrough, 29, to five years’ probation and imposed a $600 fine for assaulting federal officers.

“I don’t want to go down into the cesspool with this country,” Yarbrough told Ryan in an impassioned explanation of his political views before the sentence was imposed. “I can’t conform to a system that is totally anti-Christ.”

Tight Security

Security had been tightened around the federal courthouse all day as marshals guarded against any possible violence during the appearance by Yarbrough, the former security chief of the Aryan Nations, a white supremacist group based in Hayden Lake, Ida.

Yarbrough pleaded guilty to the weapons violations last month. A week later, he was convicted of assaulting FBI agents who had his northern Idaho home under surveillance last fall.

He has also been linked to--but not charged with--the murder of Jewish talk-show host Alan Berg in Denver. The gun used to kill Berg was found in Yarbrough’s home.

Will Appeal Conviction

He has said he will appeal his assault conviction. He faced a maximum penalty of 71 years in prison and $110,000 in fines on all counts.

Yarbrough’s arrest in November, after a Portland, Ore., motel shootout, came early in a string of arrests involving members of The Order, a splinter group of the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations.

The Order has been linked to armored-car robberies in California and Washington last year and to the June submachine-gun killing of Berg, who used his program to denounce extremists.