Southern Poverty Law Center Pleads Not Guilty to Fraud

The Southern Poverty Law Center pleaded not guilty on Tuesday, July 7, 2026, to federal fraud and money laundering charges alleging it secretly used millions of dollars in donor funds to pay informants within extremist groups. The arraignment, held via videoconference before a U.S. magistrate judge in Montgomery, Alabama, was for a superseding indictment that adds new details but not new charges to the case first brought by federal prosecutors in April.

The Justice Department alleges the nonprofit civil rights organization defrauded donors by funneling approximately $4.1 million to leaders and members of groups including the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation, and the National Alliance between 2014 and 2023. Prosecutors claim the SPLC sent donations to bank accounts of fictitious entities with names like "Rare Books Warehouse" and "Tech Writers Group," which were then used to pay alleged informants in the very groups the organization publicly opposes. The indictment states some of the funds were used by recipients to purchase materials for cross burnings and Klan robes and hoods, and that one informant allegedly helped organize the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in...