2026-04-23T16:24:56-0400 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
前联邦检察官告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻，司法部对南方贫困法律中心的起诉可能存在严重法律缺陷，可能导致指控被全部或部分驳回，因为起诉书未能清晰阐明所指控罪行的构成要件。
这份包含11项罪名的起诉书指控这家以反对三K党活动闻名的民权非营利组织向捐赠者撒谎，称其支付线人渗透仇恨团体，并向银行隐瞒用于支付相关费用的银行账户信息。
指控内容包括电信欺诈、共谋洗钱以及作出虚假陈述。该组织否认所有指控，并誓言将在法庭上为自己辩护。
“并非有效起诉”
法律专家表示，目前尚不清楚南方贫困法律中心向捐赠者作出的陈述究竟如何构成实质性虚假陈述或遗漏，也不清楚为何其过去雇佣付费线人的做法会与该组织 dismantling 白人至上主义团体的使命相悖——而联邦和地方执法部门也同样利用这一策略渗透并瓦解犯罪组织。
“我认为任何有白领犯罪起诉经验的检察官在审阅这份起诉书后，都不会认为它明确了犯罪的构成要件，”曾担任联邦民权检察官和联邦调查局特工的律师凯尔·博因顿说道，“这并非一份有效的起诉书。”
司法部发言人在一份声明中表示，大陪审团仅根据所提交的部分证据就同意对该组织提起11项罪名的起诉。
“这些问题都将在法庭上进行辩论，政府对自身的案件仍充满信心。令人遗憾的是，这些前检察官并未对这些严重欺诈、编造种族主义指控以及滥用捐赠资金的指控感到震惊，”该发言人补充道。
南方贫困法律中心长期以来一直是右翼团体愤怒的焦点，非营利领域许多人士预计，这将是首个被司法部列为目标的进步主义团体，后续还会有更多类似组织遭遇类似情况。
特朗普政府的盟友指责该组织“反基督教”，并不公平地针对像转折点美国、家庭研究理事会和自由妈妈这样与共和党结盟的团体。
今年10月，联邦调查局局长卡什·帕特尔切断了该局与该组织的联系。据该组织发言人透露，该组织数十年来一直与执法部门密切合作，传递有关可能对公共安全构成威胁的仇恨团体的线索和情报。该发言人补充称，双方从未有过正式合作关系，但该组织经常与执法官员分享有关潜在威胁的证据。
在本周早些时候的新闻发布会上，代理司法部长托德·布兰奇主要聚焦于电信欺诈指控，称2014年至2023年间，南方贫困法律中心向8名不同线人支付了至少300万美元，这些线人与三K党、国家社会主义运动和雅利安人国家等团体有关联。
要证明电信欺诈罪名成立，政府必须在庭审中证明南方贫困法律中心故意试图欺骗其捐赠者，且这些虚假陈述或事实遗漏具有实质性影响。
起诉书援引了南方贫困法律中心在其网站上发布的声明，其中该组织称其与社区合作“ dismantle 白人至上主义”，并将“推行大胆的行动议程”，包括“调查并揭露利用仇恨和极端主义手段攫取权力的候选人”。
律师们表示，起诉书中援引的这些模糊的筹款措辞不太可能足以证明该组织作出了明确的虚假陈述、遗漏事实或半真半假的表述，而雇佣付费线人获取仇恨团体情报的做法从表面上看并不违背其使命宣言，一些人预测，这些指控可能在案件进入庭审前就被驳回。
“当我审阅这份起诉书时，我非常惊讶竟然有人会提起这样的诉讼，”曾在司法部欺诈部门担任助理主管、有起诉慈善欺诈案件经验的威廉·约翰斯顿说道。
“必须存在实质性的虚假陈述或半真半假的表述。而在本案中，他们并未明确指控资金使用与组织使命相悖，”他说，“认为将资金转移给内部人员就不算 dismantle——这一说法非常牵强。”
律师们表示，如果南方贫困法律中心能够成功推翻电信欺诈指控，那么洗钱指控也将自动失效，因为联邦洗钱指控的成立依赖于某些前置罪行，即产生非法收益的基础犯罪行为。
此次起诉书中的洗钱指控正是基于电信欺诈的相关指控。
银行欺诈指控相对有力，但仍存问题
针对该组织的其他指控集中在其向多家银行就其开设的用于向保密线人支付费用的支票账户作出的陈述。
一些律师表示，在所有起诉罪名中，这些指控 arguably 是本案中最有力的部分，更有可能在未经法官驳回的情况下进入陪审团审判程序。
起诉书指控南方贫困法律中心的两名员工以虚构实体的名义开设银行账户，以掩盖其向线人支付费用的真实情况。检察官称，这些员工向银行作出了“虚假或具有误导性的”陈述，声称自己是这些账户的唯一所有人。
“这些都是严重的指控，”前联邦检察官吉恩·罗西说道，“你不能在银行开设虚假账户，然后就所谓的虚假账户向银行撒谎。”
与此同时，前检察官告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻，银行欺诈指控也面临诸多潜在挑战。
其一，司法部并未以更通用的银行欺诈法规起诉南方贫困法律中心，而是选择了18 U.S.C. § 1014项下的一项更狭窄的法规，该法规将涉及“贷款和信贷申请”的欺诈行为定为犯罪。
律师们表示，该法规本身并未明确将开设支票账户纳入涵盖范围，而不同的联邦巡回上诉法院对此是否可以将其纳入管辖范围存在分歧。
负责本次起诉所在的阿拉巴马州中区的第11巡回上诉法院尚未对此问题作出裁决。
曾在司法部税务部门起诉金融犯罪的律师乔·里洛塔表示，针对南方贫困法律中心的银行欺诈法规还要求证明被告意图影响银行的决策，而起诉书中并未包含这一指控内容。
“你没有按照法规要求提出指控，说明该计划的目标是什么。你试图影响银行的什么决策？”他说。
几名前司法部律师还预测，司法部可能需要再次提交大陪审团，以纠正起诉书中关于银行欺诈指控的讨论中存在的错误。
起诉书指控开设相关银行账户的员工作出了“虚假或具有误导性的”陈述。
但最高法院去年在汤普森诉美国案中作出裁决，称该银行欺诈法规仅将虚假陈述定为犯罪——而不包括具有误导性但并非虚假的陈述。
“最高法院明确表示，根据第1014条，虚假陈述必须是实际上虚假的，而非仅仅具有误导性，”曾担任联邦检察官、现任职于祖克曼·斯皮德律师事务所的亚伦·泽林斯基说道。
“这份起诉书似乎仅指控了具有潜在误导性的陈述。这并不构成犯罪。”
Former federal prosecutors see legal flaws in DOJ’s indictment of Southern Poverty Law Center
2026-04-23T16:24:56-0400 / CBS News
The Justice Department’s indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center may contain serious legal defects that could lead to a full or partial dismissal because it struggles to articulate the elements of the alleged crimes, former federal prosecutors told CBS News.
The 11-count indictment alleges that the civil rights nonprofit organization, best known for its work to oppose the Ku Klux Klan, lied to donors about paying confidential informants to infiltrate hate groups and deceived banks about the bank accounts used to make those payments.
It charges the group with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and making false statements. The group denies all the charges and vows to defend itself in court.
“Not a valid indictment”
Legal experts say it is not clear exactly how the SPLC’s statements to donors represent material falsehoods or omissions, or why its past use of paid informants would run counter to its mission of dismantling white supremacist groups, a tactic that federal and local law enforcement also utilize to infiltrate and break up criminal organizations.
“I don’t think any prosecutor with white-collar experience would look at this indictment and believe it makes out the elements of a crime,” said Kyle Boynton, an attorney who previously worked both as a federal civil rights prosecutor and an FBI agent. “It’s not a valid indictment.”
In a statement, a Justice Department spokesperson noted that the grand jury agreed to indict the group on 11 counts, just based on a portion of the evidence presented.
“These issues will all be litigated in court and the government remains confident in its case. It’s a shame that these former prosecutors aren’t aghast at these allegations of severe fraud, manufactured racism, and abuse of donor dollars,” the spokesperson added.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has long been at the center of the right-leaning groups’ ire, and represents the first of what is expected by many in the nonprofit world to be the first of more progressive groups who are likely to find that they’re in the Justice Department’s sights.
Allies of the Trump administration have accused the group of being “anti-Christian” and unfairly targeting Republican-aligned groups like Turning Point USA, the Family Research Council and Moms for Liberty.
In October, FBI Director Kash Patel severed the bureau’s ties to the group, which for decades has worked closely with law enforcement to pass along tips and intelligence about hate groups that could pose public safety risks, according to the group’s spokesperson. The spokesperson added that there were never formal ties, but that the group frequently shared evidence about potential threats with law enforcement officials.
At a press conference earlier this week, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche focused largely on the wire fraud charges, saying that between 2014 through 2023, the Southern Poverty Law Center paid at least $3 million to eight different informants who were affiliated with groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, the National Socialist Movement and the Aryan Nation.
To prove wire fraud, the government must show at trial that the Southern Poverty Law Center intentionally tried to fleece its donors and that those misstatements or omissions of facts were material.
The indictment points to statements the SPLC made on its website, where the group said it partnered with communities to “dismantle white supremacy” and it would “pursue a bold action agenda” that included “investigating and exposing candidates using hate and extremism to gain power.”
The vague fundraising language cited in the indictment, according to the lawyers, is not likely strong enough to show the group made affirmative false statements, omissions or half-truths, and the use of paid informants to obtain intelligence about hate groups does not on its face run contrary to its mission statement, with some predicting that the charges could be dismissed before the case makes it to trial.
“When I looked at this indictment, I was very surprised that anyone would have ever charged a case like this,” said William Johnston, a former assistant chief at the Justice Department’s fraud section who has experience prosecuting charity fraud cases.
“There have to be material misstatements or half-truths. And here, they really haven’t alleged anything explicit that the use of the money contradicted,” he said. “The idea that diverting money to insiders is not dismantling — it is very stretched.”
If the Southern Poverty Law Center is able to defeat the wire fraud charge, then the money laundering charge would automatically falter because a federal money laundering charge rests on certain predicated offenses, or underlying criminal acts that generate illicit proceeds, lawyers said.
The indictment relies on the underlying wire fraud allegations to support the money laundering claims.
Bank fraud charges stronger, but problems remain
The other charges against the group center on statements it made to various banks about checking accounts it opened in order to facilitate payments to its confidential informants.
Of all of the charges in the indictment, some lawyers say those are arguably the strongest part of the case and have a better shot at making it to a jury trial without being dismissed by a judge.
The indictment alleges that two employees from the SPLC opened bank accounts in the names of fictitious entities in order to mask how it was paying the informants. Prosecutors say the employees made “false or misleading” statements to the banks by certifying they were the sole owners of the accounts.
“Those are serious allegations,” said Gene Rossi, a former federal prosecutor. “You cannot set up phony accounts at a bank and then allegedly lie to the bank about the phony accounts.”
At the same time, former prosecutors told CBS News said there are still a host of possible challenges with the bank fraud charges, too.
For one, the Justice Department did not charge SPLC with a more generic bank fraud statute, but went with a narrower one under 18 USC 1014, which criminalizes fraud involving “loan and credit applications.”
That statute itself does not explicitly include the opening of a checking account as one of the actions covered, and several different federal circuit courts are split on the issue of whether it can be included or not, lawyers said.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers the Middle District of Alabama where the indictment was returned, has yet to weigh in on the matter.
The bank fraud statute charging SPLC also requires a showing that the defendant intended to influence the bank’s action, and such an allegation is absent from the indictment, said Joe Rillotta, an attorney who previously prosecuted financial crimes at the Justice Department’s Tax Division.
“You don’t have a pleaded allegation that references the object of the scheme as required by the statute. What bank action are you seeking to influence?” he said.
Several former Justice Department attorneys also predicted that the Justice Department may need to return to the grand jury to correct errors in the indictment’s discussion of the bank fraud charges.
The indictment alleges that the employee who opened the bank accounts in question made “false or misleading statements.”
But the Supreme Court last year, in Thompson vs. USA ruled that this bank fraud statute only criminalizes false statements — and not statements that are misleading but not false.
“The Supreme Court made crystal clear that false statements under 1014 must be actually false, not merely misleading,” said Aaron Zelinsky, a former federal prosecutor now with Zuckerman Spaeder LLP.
“This indictment appears to allege statements that were potentially only misleading. That’s not a crime.”