January 1, 2002, Oregon, Indiana Fugitive James David Torkelson, a white supremacist and former security guard for Aryan Nations, is arrested near South Bend, Indiana, where he had been staying at the home of an Indiana Klan leader. Torkelson was one of five people indicted in December by a Multnomah County grand jury in connection with the alleged beating and kidnapping of a woman who refused to participate in a planned attack on anti-racist skinheads. Of the others indicted, one-Gary Carson Brown-is already in custody, while the other three remain fugitives.  

January 4, 2002, Tennessee In Nashville, police arrest Michael Edward Smith after being notified by a motorist that someone was sitting in a car with an assault rifle pointed at a local synagogue. Following his arrest, Smith leads authorities to various storage locations where officers discover pipe bombs and explosives, as well as hate literature from the National Alliance and the Ku Klux Klan. Smith is charged with conspiracy to make explosive devices and unlawful possession of firearms (although this will subsequently be dropped in favor of a charge of possession of a pipe bomb).  

January 4, 2002, Ohio Danny Kincaid, the Ohio state leader of Aryan Nations, pleads guilty to dealing firearms without a license in return for the federal government dropping 26 other charges against him. Kincaid, a convicted felon, had been caught in possession of firearms-including 35 rifles, revolvers, pistols, and assault rifles-the previous year.  

January 8, 2002, Massachusetts A vandalism spree in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in which 136 car tires were slashed (and some cars scratched with swastikas), leads police to a cache of illegal weapons and white supremacist literature. Police follow tracks in the snow to the house of Zachary Eastman, where they discover neo-Nazi materials and a sawed off shotgun. Eastman faces charges on 141 counts of malicious damage, as well as other charges, including felony charges for possession of illegal weapons.  

January 8, 2002, Oklahoma, Tennessee An FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force arrests Jack Ray Spores of Midwest City, Oklahoma, in connection with the arrest the previous week of Michael E. Smith, after Smith allegedly pointed a rifle at a synagogue in Nashville, Tennessee (see January 4 Tennessee listing). Agents in the Oklahoma City FBI office tell reporters they believe Spores supplied Smith with illegal weapons and explosives; they discovered a pipe bomb and pipe bomb components in Spore's house. Police also found neo-Nazi literature, a Nazi flag, and a framed quote from Adolf Hitler. Spores is charged with possession of a pipe bomb.  

January 9, 2002, Iowa Tyler Duane Millard, living in a halfway house in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, following a guilty plea to attempted burglary in connection with a string of break-ins, is ordered to prison after distributing white supremacist literature at the halfway house. He must now serve his two year prison sentence, previously suspended.  

January 10, 2002, New York, Germany In a strange case, a German United Nations political information officer is arraigned in New York following a series of anti-Semitic hate crimes he allegedly committed in his East Side high rise apartment. Matthias Gueldner, charged with 11 counts of arson and harassment, is accused of starting a fire in front of the door of a Jewish neighbor, of scrawling anti-Semitic graffiti, and setting a second fire. Authorities also claim that Gueldner was behind a false report that there was a plot to fly a Cessna into the offices of United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan. Searching his apartment, police confiscate neo-Nazi literature, as well as an Arabic grammar book and a notebook with Arabic writing.  

January 11, 2002, Indiana Alex Witmer, a self-professed member of the Aryan Brotherhood, pleads guilty to murder (and an unrelated robbery charge) in connection with the 1999 shooting death of a black man. Witmer faces up to 85 years in prison. Another person involved in the incident, Jason Powell, previously pleaded guilty to murder in 2001.  

January 12, 2002, Pennsylvania The town of York, Pennsylvania, plays unwilling host to a large white supremacist rally involving the World Church of the Creator, the National Alliance, Hammerskin skinheads, and other extremists. Clashes between attendees, anti-racist counterdemonstrators and police trying to maintain order occur frequently; police report 25 arrests, mostly for disorderly conduct. One anti-racist is run down by a pickup truck after a skinhead, trapped in an alley, tries to force his way through a mob of demonstrators. Guns are confiscated from two neo-Nazis. Matt Hale, the head of the racist and anti-Semitic World Church of the Creator, came to York in order to exploit the reopening of an old racial wound. In 1969, race riots in York resulted in the deaths of a black woman and a white policeman. Recently, two black men were charged with the policeman's death, while nine white men-including a former mayor-were charged with the woman's murder.  

January 13, 2002, Oklahoma Oklahoma City police officers find the body of a dead man-shot four times-in a house occupied by Ricky Cain, a self-admitted member of the Aryan Brotherhood. Cain is arrested a week later after violating an agreement to turn himself in to police. Cain had been released from prison only five months earlier. In an interview with a local newspaper, Cain admits to shooting the victim, but claims self defense. He also denies assertions by police officers that his racist beliefs played any role in the shooting.  

January 14, 2002, Georgia, California Tax protester James Stuart Lake of Corona Del Mar, California, pleads guilty in federal court in Georgia to two counts of failure to file income tax returns. Lake, an airline pilot, claimed that the IRS was unconstitutional and that he was not a citizen subject to filing or paying income taxes; he also claimed that his income could not be defined as wages and that, as a "native born American," he was not subject to the laws of Congress. As part of the plea bargain, Lake agrees to pay $176,000 owed in back taxes; he also faces time in prison.  

January 18, 2002, Arizona A jury in Tucson, Arizona, convicts Jason Paul Doty of first degree murder for the killing of an unarmed security guard during a robbery. Prosecutors claim that Doty, a self-proclaimed Aryan Satanist, killed Towers to increase his powers as a "high priest." Doty still faces two other murder trials.  

January 19, 2002, California Richard McCaslin is arrested in Sonoma County, California, for entering the Bohemian Grove men's club while heavily armed with two guns, a crossbow, two blades, and a homemade grenade launcher. McCaslin, who calls himself the "Phantom Patriot," learned about the club while watching a conspiracy videotape from anti-government activist and talk show host Alex Jones and became convinced that strange Satanic and other rituals were being performed there. McCaslin, according to an interview he gave local reporters, "wanted to make a point" and was prepared to kill people at the resort "if necessary." McCaslin faces six felony charges, including arson, burglary, and brandishing a weapon.  

January 22, 2002, Utah Three Richfield, Utah, family members are sentenced in federal court in Salt Lake City for giving the IRS and other government agencies bogus checks for millions of dollars. Leonard Brown receives a 2 ½ year sentence, while son Kevin Brown receives a five month sentence and daughter-in-law Jodilyn Brown is sentenced to 10 months of home confinement. Brown, a dentist, and his son, a baker, had ties to the Montana Freemen, who provided them with the bogus checks. He earlier pleaded guilty, but unsuccessfully tried to withdraw his guilty plea. The elder Brown is a long time tax protester, having spent time in prison in 1976 and from 1998-2000 on tax-protest related convictions.  

January 23, 2002, Arizona Robert Stewart, a close friend and associate of "patriot" leader Bo Gritz and the manufacturer of a .50 caliber machine gun kit popular with militia members and other right-wing extremists, is convicted in Phoenix on five counts of unlawful possession of machine guns and one count of being a felon in possession of firearms. During a 2001 search of Stewart's Mesa, Arizona, home, ATF agents found five machine guns and 26 other firearms. Steward was convicted in 1994 in Utah for unlawful possession of a machine gun.  

January 23, 2002, North Carolina Sovereign citizen activist Peter Kay Stern of Franklin, North Carolina, receives a 12 year sentence for his conviction on charges of conspiracy to defraud the government, obstructing the Internal Revenue Service, mailing threats, trying to defraud a bank, and threatening to kidnap two federal judges. Stern was the leader of a Macon County common law court that "convicted" public officials and sent them threatening letters; he also used bogus checks obtained from the Montana Freemen.  

January 24, 2002, Minnesota A jury in Dakota County, Minnesota, convicts Jarod Lee Sparks of assaulting a 4-year-old boy of mixed race after attending a Ku Klux Klan rally in 2001. Sparks is found guilty of bias-motivated harassment and harassment of a child, as well as misdemeanor assault charges. Sparks is engaged to the boy's mother. Another person, Michael Pigg, earlier pleaded guilty to bias-related harassment and was sentenced to 135 days in jail.  

January 24, 2002, FloridaJohn Philip Ellis, a tax protester, and sovereign citizen, is sentenced in Miami to 10 ½ years in prison. Ellis, and several associates, were convicted last August of conspiracy to defraud the government by running a bogus trust scheme. Ellis was also convicted of obstructing justice by tampering with a grand jury investigation. Four others-Robert Koch, Jeffrey Pollard, Mark Kennedy, and Edward Riccardi-received prison terms ranging from 15 months to five years, while a fifth person, Sharon Alfonson, who became a government witness, was given five years' probation. While jailed, Ellis filed a motion attacking the jury that convicted him because "all the jury members are of a minority race, whereas Mr. Ellis is of the majority race in this country." The motion was dismissed.  

January 25, 2002, Washington Two self-professed skinheads, Chad Schaffer and Nathan Fehl-Haber, are charged with malicious harassment in Clarkston, Washington, for allegedly assaulting a black man with a baseball bat. According to police, the victim was approached by three white males who told him they were skinheads, called him racist names, and warned him away from white women. One of the men allegedly swung at the victim with a baseball bat.  

January 29, 2002, Oregon A federal grand jury indicts Fritz Springmeier and Forrest Bateman on charges of armed bank robbery, use of a firearm in a violent crime, and possession of a destructive device in a violent crime. Springmeier (also known as Victor Schoof) is also indicted on suspicion of growing marijuana. According to the indictment, the men detonated a bomb at an adult video store near Damascus, Oregon, in October 1997 as a diversion for an armed robbery of a Damascus bank. Springmeier has been known for his involvement with the Boring-based Christian Patriot Association (CPA); in March 2001 he and his wife were arrested as part of a federal investigation into that organization. Police seized marijuana-growing equipment, weapons, and white supremacist literature during the arrest. Bateman, whom police say met Springmeier at a CPA gathering, was convicted in 1989 of racially intimidating a high school student; earlier he appeared briefly on the Oregon State Police's 10-most-wanted list. He was arrested in February 2001, along with two other people, in Sandy, Oregon. During the arrest, police found weapons, explosives, ammonium nitrate, fuel oil, and white supremacist literature, as well as literature affiliated with the anti-abortion group called the Army of God.  

January 29, 2002, North Carolina Steven Roebuck, a Raleigh dentist and tax protester, is arrested and charged with willful failure to file an income tax return and refusal to act as an agent in withholding income from his employees. Roebuck claims that "nine years of research" led him to the conclusion that there is nothing in the IRS Codes that make him liable to pay income taxes. According to records, the last time he paid his income taxes was in 1987.  

January 30, 2002, New York Saratoga County chiropractor James Garofalo is sentenced to 37 months in federal prison for his role in a scheme in which he filed bogus IRS form 8300s that alleged he had conducted large (unreported) monetary transactions with five public officials with whom he had had disputes. People who use this common sovereign citizen "paper terrorism" tactic hope that this will cause the IRS to investigate the individuals they have named. Garafalo is also found guilty of tax evasion charges for not paying nearly $100,000 in income taxes. In addition to his jail time, he also receives three years of supervised release and a $50,000 fine.  

January 31, 2002, Wisconsin Thomas Iverson of Beloit, Wisconsin, pleads guilty in federal court to making telephone threats to a liquor store owned by an Arab man. Iverson called the owner in September, claiming to be with the Wisconsin Militia, and threatened to burn down the man's store, his family, and his home, unless the man left the country within 24 hours. He faces up to 10 years in prison.