Family Awarded $6M in Aryan Nations Case

C O E U R D’ A L E N E, Idaho, Sept. 7 -- An Idaho jury tonight found the leader of the Aryan Nations, his chief of staff and two former guards liable for $6.3 million for an attack on a mother and her son outside the sect’s headquarters.

Jurors, who received the civil case Wednesday evening after sixdays of testimony, recommended that Victoria and Jason Keenanreceive $6 million in punitive damages and $330,000 in compensatory damages. The Keenans said they were chased, shot at andassaulted while searching for a lost wallet on July 1, 1998, infront of the Aryan Nations compound north of Coeur d’Alene.

The 1st District Court jury found that that Richard Butler, the leader of the Aryan Nations and its corporate entity, Saphire, Inc., were negligent in theselection, training and supervision of the security guards whoassaulted the Keenans, Jesse Warfield and John Yeager. Butler was not in the courtroom when the verdict was announced;the Keenans hugged each other tearfully.

Bankrupting a NationIn closing arguments Wednesday, attorney Morris Dees, who represented the Keenans suggested $10 million in punitive damages and $1.26 million in compensatory damages as a way for jurors to send a message to hate groups across the nation. Dees, of the Montgomery, Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, had said he hoped the penalty would be severe enough to bankrupt the Aryan Nations. He has won large awards against the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups.

Lawyer Edgar Steele, who represented Butler, Teague and thegroup, suggested the Keenans be awarded $4,000 to $10,000 each fortheir distress.

He blamed only two security guards who took part in the attackand said Butler was not responsible. Steele argued that JesseWarfield and John Yeager were drunk, against regulations, when theyattacked the Keenans.

Warfield and Yeager, who represented themselves, brieflyaddressed the jury Wednesday, taking responsibility for the attackbut steadfastly refusing to implicate Butler, 82. Both men areserving prison sentences for the assaults, and a third former guardremains a fugitive.