Metzger Rejects Deal to Let Him Remain in Home

White supremacist Tom Metzger defiantly rejected an agreement that would have allowed him to temporarily remain in his Fallbrook home if he shut down his nationwide racist campaign, a San Diego attorney said Wednesday.

James E. McElroy, a lawyer representing the family of a Portland, Ore., man who allegedly died at the hands of Metzger-inspired “skinheads,” said the agreement would have kept the 52-year-old television repairman from losing his home while appealing a multimillion-dollar civil judgment against him.

Under the terms of the agreement, Metzger, the leader of the group White Aryan Resistance, was to “shut down his hate machine,” suspending publication of his newspaper and taped telephone messages on his national hot line, McElroy said.

Metzger was also to cancel his “Race and Reason” cable TV show and not make any public appearances to further his white supremacist cause, or start any new racially motivated organizations.

He would also have had to sacrifice the deed to his ranch-style home--valued at about $100,000--to the family of the late Mulugeta Seraw until 30 days after the result of his court appeal, the attorney said.

“The deal was for Tom Metzger to quit the war business,” McElroy said, “to quit rabble-rousing people across the country to hate nonwhites and Jews. Stop your organization, and we’ll stop trying to collect on your house.”

On Wednesday, however, the day after McElroy sent a written copy of the agreement for Metzger to sign, Metzger instead sent copies of the four-page agreement to the press--along with a drawing decrying what he called an “exorcism of freedom of speech.”

The cartoon shows a Metzger look-alike riding the back and covering the mouth of attorney Morris Dees, who last month won a $12.5-million judgment against Metzger and several others.

“You can take my house, my business, my income from me and my family of eight,” the cartoon reads. “But you can’t take my FREEDOM! Morris, GO TO HELL!”

In a faxed copy of the cartoon to McElroy, Metzger also scribbled the message: “Sorry Jim, no deal,” the attorney said.

McElroy said he was confused by Metzger’s mixed signals.

“I’m befuddled, but then I’m frequently befuddled over what Tom Metzger does,” he said. “I was trying to do him a favor by letting him stay in the house he and his wife have inhabited for years while he went about what could be a lengthy court appeal.

“But he acts like I was trying to talk him into something. My response is to go full speed ahead. He could have done things the easy way. But, if Tom Metzger wants to do things the hard way, well, then, I’m his man. If he wants me to start getting tough today, then I’ll do it.

“Because this is going to be a long fight. This judgment is good for 20 years. And I’ll be on his case for 20 years, grabbing every asset he ever dreamed of owning.”

Seraw, 27, was an Ethiopian immigrant who was beaten to death by Portland skinheads in November, 1988. A Multnomah County jury held in October that Metzger, his son John, 22, and the White Aryan Resistance took part in a civil conspiracy that resulted in Seraw’s death.

Tom Metzger intentionally sent recruiters to Portland with the mission to incite violence against blacks and Jews, the jury found.

Metzger, reached Wednesday at his Fallbrook home, said he wasn’t fooled by what he called a ploy to shut down his organization.

“Nobody shuts me up,” he said. “I’ll never sit still for any agreement to gag my phone line, newspaper or video show. There’s no way nobody on this planet is going to do that.”

Metzger acknowledged that he met with McElroy two weeks ago at the attorney’s San Diego office. “I went to hear what he had to say. I listened and I said, ‘Put it in writing,’ ” he said.

“What this shows is that the total mood behind that lawsuit had nothing to do with liability for that killing. The idea was always to shut me up in terms of my political beliefs. This was just another step in doing that.”

McElroy said Metzger initially agreed to the terms during their meeting but wanted them put in writing. “It was something we did confidentially. He told me, ‘I’ll do it.’ And then he sends it to all the newspapers,” he said.

“It sounds like Tom is just searching for more media publicity, like he fears he’s going to die once the spotlight is shifted from him,” McElroy said.

On Wednesday, Metzger also denied newspaper reports that half the money contributed to his organization was used to pay his credit card bill and other personal expenses that included $260 in payments for a hairpiece.

“Brother, this is no doubt going to be a war,” he said. “It’s going to be a long war.”