Heidi Beirich arrested in alleged $4m SPLC payment case

Heidi Beirich, a former Southern Poverty Law Center executive, was arrested on Wednesday over her alleged role in donor money being secretly used to pay confidential informants in extremist groups, federal officials said.

FBI Director Kash Patel said Beirich, 59, the former director of intelligence for the SPLC, is charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to submit false statements to a bank and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The Justice Department indicted the Alabama-based SPLC in April. The charges against Beirich are in a superseding indictment unsealed on Wednesday.

The Justice Department said the indictment alleges that, between 2007 and 2023, more than $4 million in donated funds was secretly funneled to people associated with various violent extremist groups.

Patel said on X that the SPLC “knowingly misled donors” who believed their money was being used to dismantle violent extremist organizations. He said part of the donations was instead used to pay senior leadership within those extremist groups.

Attorney General Todd Blanche said Beirich is alleged to have been part of an effort to open bank accounts in the names of fictitious companies and make payments to people for inaccurate reasons.

The SPLC, whose stated mission is to fight white supremacy and create a multiracial democracy, has acknowledged that it previously used confidential informants to gather intelligence on extremist groups including the Ku Klux Klan and National Socialist Party of America. It said it no longer does so and has said it shared information obtained from informants with local and federal law enforcement.

Michael Proctor, Beirich's lawyer, said in a statement to US media that the case against her is “without merit.” He said the charges against Beirich and the SPLC are politically motivated and that Beirich was targeted because of her work against hate groups and extremists.