The leader of a white supremacist prison gang and four associates have been found guilty of the brutal kidnapping and murder of a member whose gang tattoo was cut out with a hot blade before he was shot and his body burned.
Filthy Fuhrer, 45, who changed his name from Timothy Lobdell, and four others were convicted of the 2017 murder of another gang member Michael Staton, as well as racketeering, kidnapping and assault charges by a federal jury in Alaska on Monday.
Prosecutors said Fuhrer ran the 1488 neo-Nazi gang from his prison cell, where he is serving a 19-year sentence for the attempted murder of an Alaska State Trooper, and issued orders to a trusted lieutenant to carry out kidnappings and executions of anyone he felt was “diminishing the power of the gang”.
The jury was told that on 3 August 2017, 1488 members Roy Naughton, Glen Baldwin and Colter O’Dell worked with Craig King, a Hells Angel Motorcycle Club member, to kill Mr Staton as retaliation for stealing from King and the 1488s.
The gang kidnapped Mr Staton, binding his feet and hands, and drove him to a duplex in Wasilla, about 40 miles north of Anchorage.
The gang members covered the walls and floor of a vacant part of the building in plastic sheeting before they beat and tortured Mr Staton, and cut his 1488 gang patch out of his rib cage with a knife heated by a propane torch.
Mr Staton was still alive when Baldwin and O’Dell took him into nearby woods, where he was shot and his body burned, prosecutors and court documents said.
Two other gang members, Nicholas Kozorra and Dustin Clowers, had previously pleaded guilty to murdering Mr Staton.
Fuhrer was also convicted of ordering the kidnapping and assault of two low-level gang members on 2 April 2017, and 20 July 2017, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors say Fuhrer believed the members were defying the gang’s code of conduct, which includes the creed that “the only currency we recognise is violence and unquestionable loyalty”.
“Violent gangs, especially those based upon racial hatred, are a plague to our society,” US Attorney S Lane Tucker for the District of Alaska said in a statement.
“As this case demonstrates, the crimes of organised prison gangs often go beyond the prison walls bringing violence into our communities. Today’s convictions are a major disruption to the operation of the 1488 prison gang and hold accountable those who order or commit brutal and heinous crimes,” Mr Tucker said.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, 1488 is a combination of two popular white supremacist numeric symbols. The 14 stands for the white supremacist “14 words” slogan. The 88 is a reference to “Heil Hitler”, with H being the 8th letter of the alphabet.
The numbers are “ubiquitous within the white supremacist movement – as graffiti, in graphics and tattoos, even in screen names and e-mail addresses”, the ADL’s website states.
The 1488 gang patch tattoo depicts an Iron Cross superimposed over a swastika.
The tattoo can only be worn by “made” members who generally gained full membership by committing acts of violence on behalf of the gang.
One of the convicted men, Colter O’Dell, earned his membership patch into the 1488s by committing Mr Staton’s murder, the US Attorney’s office said.
“The inhumanity shown by members of the 1488 criminal enterprise, to include the kidnapping, torture, and murder of Michael Staton, is a gruesome example of why we must identify and dismantle violent criminal organisations,” Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Anchorage Field Office Antony Jung said in a statement.
All five gang members face a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole for the murder when they are sentenced in October.
Associated Press contributed to this report
