The League of Iowa Human & Civil Rights Agencies

Done in by his own words, Internet hatemonger William A. White was convicted Friday of threatening people from Virginia Beach to Canada. The verdict, however, was not a total repudiation of White's assertion that the First Amendment should protect his incendiary speech. Of seven counts against White, the federal jury acquitted him of three. White, who will be sentenced later, could face up to 35 years in prison. The self-proclaimed leader of a Roanoke-based neo-Nazi group, White was returned to the city jail late Friday afternoon as a snowstorm swirled around the downtown courthouse where, for the past week and a half, the jury heard testimony about how he used the Internet and other means to terrorize total strangers with whom he disagreed. Yet in the end, White's own words led to his downfall.

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