{"id":354620,"date":"2026-08-12T14:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T19:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/ex-law-center-official-charged-in-criminal-case-against-group-lawyer"},"modified":"2026-08-12T14:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T19:30:13","slug":"ex-law-center-official-charged-in-criminal-case-against-group-lawyer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/ex-law-center-official-charged-in-criminal-case-against-group-lawyer","title":{"rendered":"Ex-law middle official charged in felony case in opposition to group: Lawyer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"prism-article-body\">\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \"><span class=\"oyrPY qlwaB AGxeB \">WASHINGTON &#8212; <\/span>A former Southern Poverty Law Center official has been charged in the Department of Justice&#8217;s broader criminal case against the Alabama-based civil rights group, a lawyer for the ex-official said Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Heidi Beirich, a <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/globalextremism.org\/heidi-beirich-ph-d\/\">political extremism expert<\/a> who served as the law center\u2019s chief financial officer, was expected to make her initial court appearance in Riverside, California, later in the day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The group has been a frequent target of attacks by conservative critics who claim the nonprofit is politically biased.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">An SPLC spokesperson had no immediate comment. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the charge at a new briefing in Washington, but did not name Bierich. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Beirich\u2019s lawyer, Michael Proctor, confirmed that she was charged in the government\u2019s existing case against the SPLC in Montgomery, Alabama.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Court records indicate Beirich is charged with wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cA free and fair society does not use the justice system to silence its political opponents,\u201d Proctor said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Beirich led the SPLC\u2019s Intelligence Project, which incurred the anger of conservatives with its annual report on organizations that it classified as hate groups. Critics accused the law center of unfairly tarnishing right-wing groups with the same label that it applied to white supremacists.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Beirich co-founded the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism in 2020 after leaving the SPLC. She has testified before Congress about far-right extremism and is frequently interviewed about the subject by news outlets. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">That group did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment Wednesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.com\/US\/wireStory\/southern-poverty-law-center-official-charged-broader-criminal-135588873\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON &#8212; A former Southern Poverty Law Center official has been charged in the Department of Justice&#8217;s broader criminal case against the Alabama-based civil rights [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":354623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[31013,15106,1674,5303,31015,31016,762,5474,24091,31014,636],"class_list":["post-354620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-alabama-based-civil-rights","tag-chief-monetary-officer","tag-congress","tag-division-of-justice","tag-international-venture","tag-michael-proctor","tag-official","tag-riverside","tag-southern-poverty","tag-splcs-intelligence-venture","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354620"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":354622,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354620\/revisions\/354622"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}