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| William White |
The juror remembered to the minute when the call came in — at 9:34 a.m.
The voice on the other end of the phone had peppered him with questions, asking him to confirm his name, date of birth and other details. And then this: Were you on the jury that convicted Matthew Hale?
Within 20 minutes, the juror, Mark Hoffman, 46, was getting hateful texts, one after the other — although none specifically threatening him. By the end of the day, he learned that his personal information — address, phone numbers and even a photo — as well as references to his longtime partner had been posted on a Web site that identified him as a juror in the Hale case.
William White, a white supremacist from Roanoke, Va., went on trial Monday in federal court in Chicago on criminal charges that he had solicited an attack on Hoffman in a post on his Web site, overthrow.com. Prosecutors charge that White targeted Hoffman because he was the foreman on a federal jury in 2004 that had convicted Hale, a white supremacist from downstate Illinois, of plotting to kill a federal judge in Chicago.
"They wouldn't stop," Hoffman said of the texts he got on Sept 11, 2008. "I just kept breaking down in tears because they wouldn't stop."
Attorneys for White, though, told the jury that White at no point in the Web post specifically called for harm to come to Hoffman. While you might not like what he says, he has a constitutional right to say it, they contended during the first day of the trial.
"This is a man who believes in the supremacy of the white race," said one of White's attorneys, Chris Shepherd. "There's no getting around a lot of what Bill White says is downright offensive. … You don't confront bad ideas with more government censorship. You confront bad ideas with superior ideas."
Federal prosecutors, however, said White's post needs to be considered in light of other inflammatory language on his Web site, in which he called for violence against other people he considered enemies of the white race.
In his opening remarks, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Ferrara said that White knew the audience he was addressing on overthrow.com — those with similar beliefs — and that he wanted them to "pick up" on the details he posted.
"It was a call for others to act … (to) find Mark Hoffman and physically and violently hurt him," Ferrara said.
The charges against White had been tossed by a judge, but an appellate court reversed that decision and ordered him tried.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, brought in from Milwaukee to preside over the trial, allowed jurors to be selected Monday without their names being publicly identified. The government had asked to protect their identities, saying jurors might fear for their own lives in light of the charges. The defense objected to the request.
Hale was convicted in 2004 of plotting the death of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow after she ruled against Hale in a trademark-infringement case. No attempt was made on Lefkow's life, but in an unrelated tragedy the following year, the judge's husband and mother were slain by a disgruntled litigant.
The post that White allegedly authored was titled "The Juror Who Convicted Matt Hale." It noted that Hoffman had "played a key role" in convicting Hale and referred to the juror as "gay and anti-racist."
In addition to the texts, Hoffman testified that he got a phone message that included racial and ethnic slurs.
Prosecutors pointed out to the jury Monday that White's Web site also contained a post in September 2008 that had a picture of President Barack Obama and the title: "Kill This (expletive)."
Nishay Sanan, another of White's attorneys, moved through the posts Monday with Hoffman, pointing out that much of the personal information was public at the time White posted it. Sanan also repeatedly asked him whether he ever saw a direct physical threat from White in the posts.
Hoffman responded no — although he immediately answered yes when prosecutors later asked him if he still felt threatened.
Chicago Tribune
