Canadian Court Temporarily Halts Money Going to U.S. Neo-Nazi Group
A Canadian judge has granted a temporary injunction that blocks distribution of a major bequest left to a notorious American neo-Nazi group. The move, won by lawyers for the sister of the deceased man on Monday, means the (NA) cannot collect an estimated $160,000, after taxes, for another eight days.
Attorneys for Isabelle McCorkill are contesting the will of her brother, Robert McCorkill, also known as McCorkell, on the grounds that it violates Canadian public policy by providing funding to the NA, a group whose members have a long history of bombings, assassinations, arson attacks and other terrorist activities. Her lawyer, Marc-Antoine Chiasson, told the National Post newspaper that she acted because she was 鈥渄isturbed鈥� by who the gift was going to, not because she sought money.
The case has drawn major attention in the Canadian media since this blog that McCorkill鈥檚 estate was about to settle and that the NA could be receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in short order. Canadian probate records show the amount is just under $250,000, but there are taxes and other fees owed.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is not an intervener in the Canadian case, but has provided an affidavit to the court describing the NA鈥檚 promotion of violence, criminal history and Hitlerian ideology. The affidavit details the group鈥檚 plans for a 鈥渢emporary unpleasantness鈥� once it takes power, as it works to carry out the 鈥渞acial cleansing of the land.鈥� It also quotes the NA鈥檚 founder saying, 鈥淯ltimately, we will win the war only by killing our enemies, not by any clever, indirect schemes.鈥�
The injunction was granted for 10 days only, but Chiasson has told reporters that he intends to seek its renewal when that period runs out. A hearing on extending the injunction is scheduled for July 31 in New Brunswick.
The NA was once the most important and dangerous hate group in America. Its founder, , is the author of The Turner Diaries, a race war novel that inspired, among many others, Timothy McVeigh, who murdered 168 people in the 1995 bombing of an Oklahoma City federal building. But it has since Pierce鈥檚 2002 death, shrinking from 1,400 members and an annual income of nearly $1 million to under 100 members and virtually no income today.
The fear, among both American and Canadian human rights advocates and others, is that the infusion of new funds could essentially bring the NA back to life.
The Toronto Star reported that probate documents in the case show that Robert McCorkill, who joined the NA in 1998 and was a personal friend of Pierce, also knew Malcolm Ross, an infamous Canadian Holocaust denier and former school teacher fired for his anti-Semitic views. Ross was listed as a 鈥渇riend of the estate.鈥�
Part of the estate is a major collection of ancient Greek and Roman coins collected by McCorkill, who was a Canadian chemist and, according to the National Post, a retired professor. He died in 2004, but his will was not probated until recently. The estate also includes a small amount of Nazi memorabilia and a human skull.
Under American law, it seems clear that the bequest could not be halted. But Canadian law includes broader provisions covering the public good, and lawyers for McCorkill鈥檚 sister and others are working to halt the transfer under that theory.
