Neo-Nazi Says JDL Is Behind Charges in Cross-Burning

The founder of a white supremacist group Tuesday blamed the Jewish Defense League for the reinstatement of charges against him and 12 neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen in connection with a 1983 cross-burning in the northeastern San Fernando Valley. The head of the JDL proudly agreed with him.

Richard Butler, founder of Aryan Nations Church, said in Hayden Lake, Ida., that the JDL was responsible for the arrest of the 13 for allegedly setting three 20-foot-high wooden crosses on fire in the backyard of a home in Lake View Terrace, at a meeting of leaders of racist groups.

Dismissal Appealed

The case was dismissed in 1984 by a Los Angeles municipal judge on the ground that the city attorney’s office improperly drafted the criminal complaint. Prosecutors appealed the dismissal to Los Angeles Superior Court, which ruled Monday that the complaint was valid and reinstated 10 misdemeanor charges, including unlawful assembly and setting a hazardous fire.

The group includes Tom Metzger, a California Klan leader who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1980. Also charged were two members of The Order, a militant offshoot of Aryan Nations, who were recently convicted in Seattle on federal racketeering and conspiracy charges in connection with a pattern of illegal activity, including armed robberies, counterfeiting and the slaying of Denver talk-show host Alan Berg.

Butler called reinstatement of the charges “all political, because we’re white and believe in the preservation of our race. . . . It apparently signifies the Constitution for the white man is dead.”

He denied having anything to do with the 1983 cross-burning and said the JDL was behind the arrests and reinstatement of charges.

“Of course we’re behind it--we’re 100% behind it,” said Irv Rubin, national chairman of the JDL.

‘A Catalyst’

He said “most of the credit goes to John Phillips,” the deputy city attorney prosecuting the case, “who would not let this die.” But, Rubin said, the JDL “has been putting pressure on various government agencies to refile these charges since the day they were dropped.”

“I don’t mean physical pressure, but calling them up and providing them with further information that this is a tremendous conspiracy. It served as a catalyst, in my opinion.”

Rubin denied Butler’s assertion that the JDL ordered police to make the arrests, saying officers acted “because they saw the crime.” But, he said, police were on hand because the JDL informed them “that there was going to be a cross-burning and we were going to demonstrate to make sure that it did not go on without opposition.”

“The police told us that, if we went away and allowed them to take over, they would make sure the crosses would not be burned, or if they were burned those responsible would be arrested.”