Jury Considering Metzger Cross-Burning Case

A jury began deliberating Tuesday in the trial of white supremacist Tom Metzger, 53, and three other men for cross burnings that took place in a racially mixed Los Angeles neighborhood in 1983.

Metzger, of Fallbrook, could be sentenced to a maximum of 3 1/2 years in prison if found guilty.

Telling testimony against Metzger and the other defendants was a videotape made by a free-lance photographer who posed as a Klan supporter in order to film the event.

Metzger is a former grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. He now heads an organization called WAR, or White Aryan Resistance. Other defendants at the trial were Brad Kelly, 29, of LeMoore; Erich Schmidt, 27, of Glendale and Stanley Witek, 58. Witek, leader of a Los Angeles neo-Nazi movement, was convicted earlier of unlawful assembly and illegal possession of billy clubs.

The four are accused of felony conspiracy to commit unlawful burning and two misdemeanor counts of unlawful burning and unlawful assembly in setting ablaze three huge wooden crosses in Kagel Canyon in a ceremony conducted by hooded and robed men.

Prosecutors contended that the cross-burning participants were trying to incite a violent confrontation with minority residents and had armed themselves with table legs to be used as clubs.

They also alleged that the group deliberately dodged fire regulations, obtaining a burning permit for an open-pit barbecue rather than one for a fraternal organization’s rituals.

In closing arguments last week, Deputy Dist. Atty. Dale Davidson told jurors that Metzger was invited to the cross-burning because of his expertise with such events, and that Metzger directed the others to get a barbecue permit.

Metzger’s attorney, Darold Shirwo, said his client only intended to make a speech at the event and argued that the case was a free-speech issue and that Metzger was on trial for voicing “some unpleasant ideas.”

Metzger testified that he did not organize the event and had been invited to participate by Frank Silva, a leader of the Ku Klux Klan in California now serving a 30-year prison sentence for racist violence. Metzger and the defendants also claimed the event was meant as a memorial service for a white police officer killed by a black man.

The charges against the four men had originally been misdemeanors that would be tried in a Municipal Court. However, the four asked that the case be upgraded to a felony because of the greater attention it would receive.

If Metzger, a sometime TV repairman and former congressional candidate, is convicted it will be the latest in a series of reversals.

In a civil trial last year in Portland, Ore., Metzger and his son, John, were found responsible for inciting two skinheads who beat to death a 27-year-old Ethiopian immigrant.

Metzger was ordered to personally pay $5 million of the $12.5-million judgment against him, his son and WAR.

Metzger’s modest Fallbrook home was sold at public auction as part of the judgment. Under the law he was allowed to keep $45,000 of the $121,000 sale price.

Last week an application he and his wife made to rent space in a Fallbrook mobile home park was rejected. A lawyer for the owners of the park said the application was rejected because the Metzgers are insolvent.