Fundraising Drive Under Way to Help Jailed White Supremacist
August B. Kreis III, who calls himself the director of the Aryan Nations, will remain in jail in South Carolina unless he can come up with a $50,000 secured bond. A wealthy, elusive racist, who once bought a house for the late Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler, already is heading up an Internet fundraiser for Kreis.
The bond was set by U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph R. McCrorey in Columbia, S.C., today at the conclusion of a detention hearing for Kreis, who faces federal fraud and embezzlement charges. A trial date in September is expected.
Kreis, a 56-year-old longtime racist with former ties to Posse Comitatus, peacefully surrendered to the local sheriff in Fulton, Tenn., earlier this month after earlier telling federal authorities he was ready to die in a gun battle. The sheriff turned Kreis over to the U.S. Marshals Service, which transported him to South Carolina.
A grand jury in South Carolina returned an indictment last month charging Kreis with two counts of filing fraudulent statements to obtain veterans benefits, once in August 2006 and again in February 2008. A third count accuses him of embezzling, stealing and converting to his own use more than $1,000 belonging to the United States.
After getting the paperwork in the mail, Kreis called the U.S. Probation Office in Columbia, S.C. The probation officer who took that call testified at Friday’s hearing that Kreis was confrontational when he called May 25. The paperwork asked Kreis to provide personal background information for a pre-trial release assessment by the U.S. Probation Office and to surrender in South Carolina.