On Wednesday, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) formally requested that a federal judge consider imposing sanctions on federal prosecutors following an incident in which the Justice Department provided an unsigned and unstamped version of a superseding indictment to members of the press.
The Justice Department made an announcement on Tuesday regarding a new superseding indictment against the SPLC, which included additional allegations concerning the organization’s alleged misuse of donations to infiltrate extremist groups. The indictment claimed that funds were utilized to purchase materials for cross burnings, as well as Ku Klux Klan robes and hats.
This latest indictment does not introduce any new defendants and retains the same 11 charges of wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering that were part of the initial indictment issued in April. This original indictment accused the SPLC of compensating informants within extremist organizations while failing to disclose this practice to donors or financial institutions.
In court documents filed on Wednesday, attorneys for the SPLC contended that the preliminary version of the superseding indictment was inappropriately disclosed to journalists prior to its official filing with the court, thereby breaching federal grand jury secrecy regulations.
The SPLC has requested that the judge compel the Justice Department to clarify its actions and justify why the prosecutors involved in the case should not face disciplinary measures.
The organization stated, “The Justice Department released an unsigned, unstamped Microsoft Word draft of the superseding indictment to the media before unsealing any valid filing and without notifying or providing a copy to defense counsel.” They criticized the department for prioritizing media strategy over the fundamental principles of grand jury confidentiality.
According to the SPLC’s legal team, the version of the superseding indictment shared with journalists included metadata indicating the DOJ attorneys who created and last modified the document on Tuesday morning.
Additionally, this Microsoft Word version contained language not found in the superseding indictment that was ultimately returned by the grand jury and publicly filed on Wednesday.
When the SPLC’s attorneys contacted the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Middle District of Alabama on Tuesday evening to inquire about the media’s access to the unsigned indictment, the lead prosecutor was unable to provide an explanation and required further time to gather information.
The SPLC’s legal representatives remarked, “In decades of collective practice, including experience as prosecutors at the DOJ, none of our attorneys have encountered anything comparable to the actions taken by the DOJ last night—distributing what turned out not to be the actual superseding indictment returned by the grand jury and filed today.” They added that such behavior contravenes both the letter and spirit of federal regulations, DOJ policies, and the basic standards of professionalism expected in judicial proceedings.
