Family Awarded $6M in Aryan Nations Case

C O E U R D’ A L E N E, Idaho, Sept. 7 , 2000 -- 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.

Purveyor of HateDuring the trial, Deescharacterized Butler as a purveyor of hate whose vision of Americais one of white superiority.

“You are the conscience of this community,” Dees told jurors.“Tell Richard Butler, ‘We don’t believe in your America, Mr.Butler.’”

Steele urged the jury to disregard Butler’s racist, anti-Semiticviews.

“He may not be, in your eyes, an attractive man, and you maynot like what he says or thinks … but he’s got a right to believewhat he wants as long as it doesn’t hurt people,” Steele said.

Last week, a former Aryan Nations security guard told jurors Butler and Teague tried to cover up the sect’s role in the attack on the Keenans. Scott Dabbs dispose of and fabricate evidence after a civil rights lawsuit was filed in January 1999.