The Southern Poverty Law Center faces federal fraud charges over a former paid-informant program after a year marked by layoffs and leadership upheaval.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has been indicted on federal fraud-related charges tied to its past use of paid confidential informants, opening a major legal fight for a civil rights organization already strained by layoffs, internal dissent and a change at the top.
The Justice Department announced Tuesday that a federal grand jury in Alabama charged the Montgomery-based nonprofit with 11 counts, including wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Prosecutors allege the SPLC paid people connected to extremist groups as part of its investigations without properly disclosing the practice to donors or banks.
The case marks a sharp escalation from what SPLC interim president and CEO Bryan Fair had described earlier Tuesday as an investigation into a now-defunct informant program. The organization denies the allegations and says its work was aimed at monitoring violent extremist groups and sharing credible intelligence with law enforcement.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche accused the group at a news conference of paying sources to encourage the extremism it publicly opposed. He said the charges include six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Fair, in a statement reported after the indictment, called the accusations false and said the organization would fight the case. “Taking on violent hate and extremist groups is among the most dangerous work there is, and we believe it is also among the most important work we do. To be clear, this program saved lives,” he said.
The indictment, returned in the Middle District of Alabama, alleges that more than $3 million in donations was secretly routed to people associated with far-right hate groups linked to neo-Nazi organizations, the Aryan Nation and Ku Klux Klan-associated groups. CBS News reported that the indictment says the program ran from 2014 to 2023 and does not allege that the money went directly to hate groups themselves.
Prosecutors also allege the SPLC used bank accounts connected to fictitious entities to conceal the nature and control of the funds. The indictment identified entities with names including Center Investigative Agency, Fox Photography and Rare Books Warehouse, according to CBS News.
The SPLC’s defense centers on the argument that confidential informants were necessary to investigate violent groups while protecting sources and their families. Fair said before the charges were announced that the SPLC had shared information gathered from informants with local and federal law enforcement, including the FBI, while limiting broader disclosure to protect informant safety. He also said the organization no longer works with paid informants.
The indictment lands after a period of unusual internal turbulence at the SPLC. Margaret Huang, who had led the organization, resigned last July after 92% of staff backed a no-confidence vote months earlier, according to The Las Vegas Sun as cited by Fox News. The center had laid off about 80 employees, roughly a quarter of its workforce, in June 2024, the outlet reported.
Huang said she stepped down because she could not both care for her parents and meet the demands of the job, while the SPLC said at the time she left after five years as leader to prioritize family life. Fair, a University of Alabama constitutional law professor and former SPLC board chair, became interim president and CEO after her departure.
The organization has faced scrutiny and internal upheaval before. In 2019, it fired co-founder and chief trial counsel Morris Dees and removed him from its board, according to the SPLC, prompting a broader restructuring that later brought Huang into the permanent president and CEO role. Dees was not charged with a crime.
The current case also unfolds amid open hostility between the SPLC and Trump administration officials and allies. FBI Director Kash Patel ended the bureau’s ties with the SPLC in October, accusing it of operating as a partisan “smear machine,” according to the captured source material. The SPLC has argued that the administration is targeting organizations that oppose extremism and defend civil rights.
Some figures in the source material remain distinct and should not be conflated: the federal indictment alleges more than $3 million in donations moved through the informant program, while a separate critic quoted in Fox News claimed the SPLC had nearly $1 billion in reserves. The indictment figure describes the alleged conduct at issue; the reserves claim is not presented as a charge.
The legal case is now expected to test both the Justice Department’s allegations about the informant program and the SPLC’s defense that its tactics were part of dangerous investigative work. The organization says it will continue its mission while defending itself, its staff and its past practices in court.
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