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June 2, 2026 / 11:14 PM EDT
/ CBS News
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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."
