Jury Convicts Nazi Leader in Cross Burning

A local American Nazi Party official was convicted Wednesday of unlawful assembly and illegally possessing a billy club at a 1983 cross burning in a predominantly black neighborhood in Lake View Terrace.

Stanley Witek, 54, of Los Angeles faces up to three years in prison when he is sentenced Dec. 7 for his part in the ceremony at which three 15-foot crosses were burned as a gesture of unity among three white supremacist groups, the Ku Klux Klan, American Nazi Party and Aryan Nations.

Four blacks and four Latinos sat on the 12-member Superior Court jury that convicted Witek, a man prosecutors described as “a white supremacist and an avowed racist.”

“It was an event planned to stir up racial unrest in Lake View Terrace,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Dale Davidson said. “It was an event planned to unify themselves and make their presence known in Los Angeles.”

Five other defendants face trial on misdemeanor unlawful assembly charges. They include Tom Metzger, a former California Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, who was the Democratic Party’s losing candidate for a San Diego congressional seat in 1980.

The defendants have alleged that they are being persecuted because of their political beliefs. Defense attorneys have argued that the crosses were burned at a private gathering in honor of a white police officer slain by a black man.