2026年6月2日 / 美国东部时间晚上11:14 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
美国司法部周二表示，已就南方贫困法律中心提交一份追加起诉书，其中包含有关该组织捐款 allegedly 被用于支付仇恨团体内部线人的新指控。
据司法部称，这份追加起诉书由阿拉巴马州中区大陪审团提交，指控该中心将价值410万美元的免税资金用于支付极端组织内部的线人，而这些线人随后 allegedly 参与了包括招募新成员、购买用于焚烧十字架以及三K党长袍和头罩的材料等活动。这些指控并非源于支付线人的普遍做法，而是源于司法部的指控：南方贫困法律中心在未向捐赠者披露该做法的情况下进行了此类支付，并通过欺诈手段欺骗银行。
这份追加起诉书并未新增任何指控，也未提及4月提交的最初版本起诉书中未出现的新被告。
该组织仍面临11项电信欺诈、银行欺诈和共谋洗钱的罪名，检察官指控该组织通过创建空壳账户向其声称要解散的同一仇恨团体内部人员转移资金，从而欺诈其捐赠者并欺骗银行。
南方贫困法律中心对4月提交的指控拒不认罪，并近日请求法院驳回此案，称其是非法报复性起诉的受害者。
“这份看似追加的起诉书试图弥补最初指控的缺陷，但并未改变任何情况，”南方贫困法律中心的律师阿贝·洛厄尔在发给哥伦比亚广播公司新闻的一份声明中表示。
“南方贫困法律中心并未向其捐赠者撒谎，也没有误导与其有业务往来的银行，其线人计划阻止了暴力行为并拯救了生命。”
截至周二晚间，追加起诉书的公开副本尚未在案件卷宗中公布，司法部提供的版本也并非最终签署版本。
洛厄尔在声明中表示，司法部似乎在联邦地区法院 unseal 这份追加起诉书之前就已将其副本提供给了媒体。
他称此举是“政府处理此案时令人不安且不合常规的又一例证”，并补充称南方贫困法律中心的法律团队将就此类违规行为向法院提出交涉。
新版本的起诉书似乎修正了一些前检察官所称的旧版本中存在问题的表述。
在先前的版本中，起诉书指控开设相关银行账户的南方贫困法律中心员工作出了“虚假或具有误导性的陈述”。
但去年最高法院在汤普森诉美国案中作出裁决，涉案的银行欺诈法规仅将虚假陈述定为犯罪，而非那些具有误导性但并非虚假的陈述。前检察官告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻，这一错误意味着起诉书错误地暗示误导性陈述也可能构成犯罪，并预测司法部需要再次提交大陪审团以纠正这一错误。
新版本的起诉书中，在提及向银行作出的陈述时，已不再包含“或具有误导性”字样。
追加起诉书中还包含了南方贫困法律中心公开纳税申报单中披露的收入信息，这是最初起诉书中未包含的内容。
司法部指控南方贫困法律中心欺诈
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/justice-department-charges-southern-poverty-law-center-fraud-extremism-investigations/
司法部指控南方贫困法律中心在极端主义调查中存在欺诈行为
(03:21)
Justice Dept. says it has obtained superseding indictment against Southern Poverty Law Center with new details on donor funds
June 2, 2026 / 11:14 PM EDT / CBS News
The Justice Department said Tuesday it obtained a superseding indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center that contained new allegations about how its donations were purportedly used to pay informants inside hate groups.
The superseding indictment, which the DOJ said was returned by a grand jury in the Middle District of Alabama, alleges that $4.1 million worth of tax-exempt funds were used to pay informants inside extremist organizations, who then allegedly engaged in activities including recruiting new members and purchasing materials for cross burnings and Ku Klux Klan robes and hoods. The charges do not stem from the general practice of paying informants but from the Justice Department’s allegations that the SPLC made these payments without disclosing the practice to donors and by defrauding banks.
The superseding indictment does not contain any new charges or name new defendants from the original version, which was returned in April.
The group still faces 11 counts of wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, with prosecutors alleging it defrauded its donors and duped its banks by creating shell accounts to funnel money to insiders who belonged to the same hate groups it pledged to dismantle.
The Southern Poverty Law Center pleaded not guilty to the charges filed in April, and recently asked the court to dismiss the case, saying it is a victim of an unlawful vindictive prosecution.
“This apparent superseding indictment attempts to shore up the flaws in the initial charges, but it changes nothing,” the SPLC’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement provided to CBS News.
“The SPLC did not lie to its donors, it did not mislead banks it did business with, and its informant program prevented violence and saved lives.”
A public copy of the superseding indictment was not yet available on the docket as of Tuesday night, and the version provided by the Justice Department was not a final signed copy.
Lowell, in his statement, said the Justice Department appeared to have shared a copy of the superseding indictment with the media before it was unsealed by the federal district court.
Such a move represents “another example of the government’s troubling and unusual handling of this case,” he said, adding that SPLC’s legal team would be addressing such irregularities with the court.
The new version of the indictment appeared to clean up what some former prosecutors said was problematic language in the older version.
In the prior version, the indictment alleged that an SPLC employee who opened the bank accounts in question made “false or misleading statements.”
But the Supreme Court last year, in Thompson v. USA, ruled that the bank fraud statute at issue only criminalizes false statements — and not statements that are misleading but not false. Former prosecutors told CBS News that this error meant the indictment was wrongfully suggesting that misleading statements could be criminal, and they predicted that the DOJ would need to return to the grand jury to fix the mistake.
The new version of the indictment no longer includes the words “or misleading” in reference to the statements made to banks.
The superseding indictment also contains information about SPLC’s revenue from its public tax filings, which had not been included in the original indictment.
DOJ charges Southern Poverty Law Center with fraud
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/justice-department-charges-southern-poverty-law-center-fraud-extremism-investigations/
Justice Department charges Southern Poverty Law Center with fraud over extremism investigations
(03:21)
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