Ex-Metzger Aide Testifies He Gave Message to Killers

A California white supremacist described to a jury Friday how he passed on the violent racist teachings of Tom Metzger to three Portland skinheads hours before they beat and kicked a black man to death.

Allen David Mazzella, 21, testified on behalf of the victim’s family, which is suing Metzger, 52, of Fallbrook, and Metzger’s son John, 22. The suit claims the leaders of the White Aryan Resistance and its Aryan Youth Movement arm incited the savage beating of Ethiopian student Mulugeta Seraw, 27.

The $10-million civil suit accuses Metzger of sending Mazzella and two other members of his group to Portland in the fall of 1988 to recruit new members and to teach a doctrine of hate and violence against blacks and Jews.

Mazzella, who testified without immunity from prosecution, said he was acting vice president of WAR Youth, a branch of Metzger’s group, when he visited Portland. He confirmed he was sent by Metzger to recruit new members of WAR from East Side White Pride and another Portland skinhead group.

He told the jury he met with members of East Side White Pride only hours before three of its members fatally beat and kicked Seraw in November, 1988.

The suit was filed on behalf of Seraw’s uncle by attorney Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. It names the Metzgers and two of three skinheads who pleaded guilty to the crime, Ken Mieske, 23, and Kyle Brewster, 20. The third, Steven Strasser, 20, also is expected to testify for the plaintiffs.

Mazzella testified that Metzger approved of his violent methods and of his recruitment of skinheads to join WAR.

“He was basically patting me on the back for what I was doing,” he said.

But during cross-examination, Metzger reviewed a series of his organization’s magazines with Mazzella, asking if any of the articles directly incited the younger man to attack minorities.

Mazzella said that collectively, the magazines create an impression that violence is acceptable.

During a short break, while the jury was out of the room, Tom Metzger had one of his four bodyguards hand Mazzella a copy of a lawsuit claiming Mazzella and several others were testifying as “agent provocateurs,” paid or retained by Portland police. A police spokesman has denied that claim.

Dees angrily challenged the courtroom presentation of the suit, saying it showed “intimidation and coercion from the defendant to the witness.”

Circuit Judge Ancer Haggerty, one of two black circuit judges in Oregon, said he would not allow a copy of Metzger’s lawsuit to be entered as evidence but would let Dees refer to it in his closing arguments.