A white supremacist Ku Klux Klan (KKK) group was ordered on Friday to pay US$2.5 million in damages in a judgment that civil rights attorneys hoped would bankrupt the chapter.
The Southern Poverty Law Center sued the nation’s second-largest Klan outfit on behalf of a Latino teen severely beaten in 2006 by two Klan members. The Klansmen were convicted and served two years in prison.
A jury on Friday ordered Imperial Klans of America grand wizard Ron Edwards and two former lieutenants to pay 19-year-old Jordan Gruver US$1.5 million for lost wages and medical expenses and Edwards to pay US$1 million in punitive damages.
Morris Dees, the center’s lead attorney, said he planned to seize Edwards’ property in Dawson Springs that serves as Klan headquarters along with any other assets that can be found. It wasn’t clear what the property is worth.
Earlier, in his closing statement, Dees told jurors that a substantial financial award would stop the Kentucky-based group in its tracks.
“It’s all about the money. It’s all about the money,” Morris Dees said. “If you stop the money, you’ll cut the organization off.”
‘NOT GOING AWAY’
The heavily tattooed Edwards plans to appeal the verdict. Despite the judgment, Edwards said the KKK would remain active.
“We’re not going away,” Edwards said.
Dees had argued during the civil trial that Edwards’ group incited violence against minorities with racist speeches and “hate metal” music, leading to the attack on Gruver. Edwards, who represented himself during the trial, denied the charge and said his group was not generally violent.
The case was similar to nearly a dozen others brought by the center against hate groups. A similar lawsuit bankrupted the white supremacist group Aryan Nations in Idaho in 1999.
The trial centered on a beating Gruver suffered at the hands of former Klan lieutenants Jarred Hensley and Andrew Watkins. Gruver suffered a broken jaw, bruised ribs and permanent nerve damage to his left arm.
COMPENSATION
The jury ordered Edwards to pay 20 percent of the compensatory damages, while splitting the remaining 80 percent evenly between Hensley and Watkins. The jury laid the US$1 million in punitive damages solely on Edwards. Hensley, who had also represented himself, left the courthouse without commenting.
Watkins reached a confidential settlement with Gruver before the trial that will account for his share of Friday’s judgment.
The judgment against Edwards and Hensley is active for 15 years, giving Gruver and the center time to pursue assets, Dees said.
“No matter what he gets, we’ll get a piece of it,” Dees said.
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