13 Whites Acquitted in Arkansas Sedition Case

Thirteen white supremacists who were tried on federal charges including sedition, murder, robbery and conspiring to set up a new nation in the Pacific Northwest were found innocent today of all charges.

An all-white jury, which reported itself deadlocked on several counts Wednesday, returned the verdict on its fourth day of deliberations.

Asked how the seven-week trial affected the white supremacist movement, defendant Robert E. Miles said, “Who knows? What movement? What’s left of it after this?”

“The government was going to send a message to the movement. The movement sent a message to the government,” said Thom Robb, the national chaplain of the Ku Klux Klan, who hugged several of the defendants after the verdict was announced.

Defendant Louis Ray Beam Jr. celebrated his acquittal by going to a Confederate memorial opposite the court building and claiming victory against what he called the “Zionist occupation government.”

Nine defendants were charged with conspiring to overthrow the government by violence. One of the nine, along with four other defendants, was charged with conspiring to kill a federal judge and an FBI agent. Two of the sedition defendants were accused of the interstate transportation of stolen money.

During the trial, government witnesses said blacks and Jews were targets of the conspirators, some of whom hold religious beliefs that categorize Jews as “the spawn of Satan,” blacks as “mud-people” and the government and news media as under the control of Jews.

The government alleged that the supremacist groups robbed banks and armored trucks of $4.1 million to finance their activities, including about $1 million that is still missing.