Metzger Guilty on 1 Count in Cross-Burning : Courts: White supremacist is convicted on misdemeanor charge in 1983 incident, but jury deadlocks on a more serious count. Three other men are found guilty of conspiracy.

In a case that offered a gritty glimpse into the world of neo-Nazi racism, a jury Monday found white supremacist Tom Metzger guilty of misdemeanor unlawful assembly for his role in a 1983 cross-burning ceremony in suburban Los Angeles.

But the panel deadlocked on two other charges, including a more serious felony conspiracy count, and a mistrial was declared. Three other men on trial with Metzger were convicted of the conspiracy and related misdemeanor charges.

Metzger, who has contended that his trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court was a political persecution, smiled broadly and shook his attorney’s hand after the verdicts were read.

“Ira Reiner can’t fool all of the people all of the time,” Metzger, former Grand Dragon of the California Ku Klux Klan, said as he emerged from the courtroom. “They (the jury) could see through the thing.”

The 8-year-old case grew out of a ceremony Metzger joined in Kagel Canyon in the San Fernando Valley. On a rainy night in December, 1983, up to 20 other men, some dressed in KKK robes and hoods, set three huge wooden crosses ablaze, chanted racist slogans and raised their arms in Nazi-style salutes.

Metzger could face six months in jail for the conviction--his first criminal conviction after decades of white racist activities. Prosecutors said they have not decided whether to retry the 53-year-old Fallbrook resident on the two unresolved charges.

“Frankly,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Dale Davidson said outside the courtroom, “I think Mr. Metzger deserves more time than that for the amount of evil he has caused in the world, but that won’t be up to me.”

Davidson added that he was pleased with the guilty verdicts because they send a message that cross-burnings and other racist behavior will not be tolerated in Los Angeles County.

Emerging from six days of deliberation, the racially mixed jury said it was hung 10 to 2 favoring Metzger’s acquittal on conspiracy to violate the municipal fire code--a felony--and a misdemeanor unlawful burning charge.

Judge J.D. Smith declared a mistrial on those two counts. Metzger’s attorney, Darold Shirwo, said he would ask that the charges be dismissed.

Metzger had never faced criminal charges before, although he lost a $12.5-million judgment in a civil lawsuit last year. Federal authorities seized Metzger’s home last month to help pay the judgment, awarded to the family of a black man beaten to death by Oregon skinheads allegedly inspired by Metzger.

While Metzger seemed content with the outcome of the 11-week trial, his co-defendants fared less well.

Convicted of the conspiracy were Stanley Witek, 58, the head of a neo-Nazi party; Erich Schmidt, 26, and Brad Kelly, 29. They also were found guilty of the misdemeanor unlawful burning count, and Schmidt and Kelly were convicted of unlawful assembly. They face up to four years in prison.

Kelly’s attorney, Kevin S. Avery, said he was “extremely disappointed” in the verdicts.

“This is a bad day for religious freedom, for political freedom and for freedom of expression,” Avery told reporters.

The defense strategy turned on persuading the jury to put aside the “despicable and morally offensive” beliefs that Metzger and his co-defendants hold, and to agree that no law was broken when the crosses were set ablaze on private property.

The prosecution argued that the defendants knew that their actions were illegal and that they hoped the cross-burning would terrorize residents and incite violence.

Two jurors said they believed that Metzger was guilty of conspiracy--but that the evidence to prove it was not presented.

“We didn’t find direct evidence that would convict him (Metzger) of conspiracy,” juror Janet Datu, a legal secretary from Eagle Rock, said. “He seemed to cover himself well.”

In a videotape of the ceremony--a key piece of the prosecution’s evidence--Metzger could be seen standing on the periphery of the cross-burning and not directly participating.

“We felt they all knew what they were going to do was illegal,” said juror Marla Conti, 36, of Los Angeles.

The verdict was the culmination of a case that has been inching its way through the judicial system for eight years.

Metzger and his co-defendants were among 15 people who were arrested after the cross-burning ceremony.

Several of the other participants are now serving prison terms for more serious crimes, including murder.

Metzger advocates separation of the races, ideas he promulgates in speeches, on a telephone hot line, through an international fax network, and in a newsletter named after the organization he now heads, the White Aryan Resistance.

Through the course of the trial, the prosecution contended that the cross-burning ceremony was held to symbolically unite several white racist groups and to terrorize residents in the racially mixed neighborhood. Peter Lake, a free-lance journalist who infiltrated the group, quoted the supremacists as saying that Los Angeles had become a “mongrel cesspool of people” in which whites had to assert themselves.

The defendants denied that they were trying to incite violence and said the ceremony was staged in memory of a white police officer allegedly slain by a black man. They pointed to a fire permit obtained by one of the organizers of the event as evidence that they believed that what they were doing was legal.

But prosecutor John Phillips, a former deputy city attorney now in private practice but who was hired for this case, contended that the fire permit was an “obvious, obvious ruse” that only authorized a barbecue--not a cross-burning.

Metzger and the other defendants maintained that the trial was a political persecution aimed at punishing them for their beliefs, which they say they have a constitutional right to express.

Among other pieces of evidence, the prosecution presented the videotape, which showed about 15 men raising their arms in Nazi salutes and chanting “Hail, victory!” as three 15-foot wooden crosses are set on fire. Richard Butler, head of the Idaho-based Aryan Nations, is seen leading the group in prayer.

“So long as the alien occupies your land, hate is your law, and revenge is your first duty,” Butler intones. “We light these crosses in the name of our God, over the Luciferian scum of the Earth.”

Butler appeared at the trial on behalf of the defense, saying that the cross-burning was not intended to intimidate residents. But on cross-examination, prosecutors appeared determined to expose the unsavory elements of the white supremacist movement: In response to questions, the 72-year-old Aryan leader calmly told the jury about the need for a separate white state and that the Holocaust never happened.

Another defense witness was Frank Silva, one of the main organizers of the cross-burning. He was brought to court from a federal penitentiary where he is serving a 40-year term on racketeering charges stemming from his role in The Order, a white racist organization that conspired to overthrow the U.S. government.