Former Southern Poverty Law Center chief financial officer Heidi Beirich pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to federal fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges tied to the nonprofit group’s use of paid informants inside extremist groups.
Beirich, who also served as director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, waived her court appearance in the Middle District of Alabama. Her lawyer, Michael Proctor, entered the plea on her behalf. The plea made Beirich the first individual defendant in the Justice Department’s criminal case against the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Pointing to an older statement from his office on Aug. 11, Proctor told the Washington Examiner the prosecution was “without merit” and politically motivated.
“We believe the charges against her and the SPLC are politically motivated, and Dr. Beirich has been targeted in this case because of the important work she has done to combat hate groups and extremists,” Proctor said in a statement. “Dr. Beirich won’t be silenced or intimidated by the government’s false and politicized allegations now. She welcomes the opportunity to present the truth in court.”
Beirich was added this month to the DOJ’s prosecution of the SPLC through a second superseding indictment. She faces charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering, which is when an individual conducts a financial transaction intended to hide the origin or nature of illegally obtained funds.
The indictment alleged Beirich helped oversee a network of fictitious businesses and bank accounts that concealed donor-funded payments to confidential sources inside neo-Nazi organizations, the Ku Klux Klan, and other extremist groups.
Prosecutors alleged the SPLC routed more than $4 million to sources in extremist groups from 2007 through 2023 while telling donors their money would help counter violent domestic extremism. The government said some money paid for Klan robes, cross-burning ceremonies, recruitment, and sources’ living expenses.
While the overarching allegations involve the SPLC’s practice of paying sources to infiltrate extremist organizations, the charges against the SPLC are instead centered on claims that the nonprofit group concealed the payments and their purpose from donors and banks.
According to the complaint, Beirich was alleged to have maintained a romantic relationship with a source identified as “F-9,” who infiltrated the neo-Nazi National Alliance. Prosecutors alleged roughly $140,000 moved from an SPLC account through a purported business account and into joint accounts shared by Beirich and the source between 2015 and 2021.
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Defense lawyers for the entity of the SPLC pleaded not guilty in July and have argued that the SPLC’s informant program lawfully produced intelligence shared with law enforcement. U.S. District Judge Emily Marks, an appointee of President Donald Trump, rejected the nonprofit’s bid to dismiss the case as vindictive prosecution this month.
A trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 5, barring no further pretrial delays.