Hal Turner

Hal Turner, the organizer of a white supremacist rally in Kingston four years ago, has been freed on $500,000 bond in a case where he is accused of threatening lawmakers and judges in two states.
…
Turner was arrested at his North Bergen, N.J., home in June after authorities said he posted online threats against Connecticut legislators and wrote that three federal judges in Illinois deserved to die.

Turner’s attorneys said he merely gave his opinion, which was protected free speech.

His lawyer also claims Turner worked as an FBI informant and spied on right-wing organizations from 2002 to 2007.

Source/Full Story:  The Daily Freeman News
Technorati Tags: Hal Turner

At his bond hearing, defense attorney Michael Orozco said the 47-year-old Turner of North Bergen was not a danger to the community as federal prosecutors claim. Turner deserved to be released on bond, Orozco said, adding that he had served as an FBI confidential informant.

"He provided information about the potential assassination of President Obama," Orozco told U.S. Magistrate Judge Martin C. Ashman.

Orozco acknowledged that he had no independent confirmation concerning a potential assassination and had only the word of his client — a political extremist whose views the lawyer himself repeatedly described as "outlandish."

The attorney also acknowledged that at some time in the past Turner had taken medicine for an emotional condition but said he no longer does because "he doesn’t need it."

Assistant U.S. Attorney William Hogan told Ashman he "never heard anything about that" potential assassination. He said Turner’s contacts with the FBI ended "quite some time ago."

After court, Hogan and a federal spokesman, Randall Samborn, declined to comment further about Turner’s relationship with the FBI or federal marshals.

Ashman gave Turner until an Aug. 10 continuation of the bond hearing to produce concrete evidence of Turner’s help to the FBI or federal marshals. He ordered Turner held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in the meantime.

After court, Orozco said he would try to subpoena Turner’s FBI "handler" for the Aug. 10 hearing.

Source/Full Story: NJ.com

…

Turner, whose views have been labeled racist, anti-Semitic and anti-government, was arrested on a warrant obtained by Connecticut’s Capitol Police Department on Wednesday after he urged readers to "take up arms" against two lawmakers and a member of the state ethics office.

Taken into custody at North Bergen police headquarters, Turner, 47, was later transferred to the Hudson County Correctional Center in Kearny, where he remains pending extradition to the Constitution State. No bail has been set.

Turner’s lawyer, Michael Orozco, said yesterday his client will fight extradition, a process that could take a month or longer. Orozco declined further comment.

In a commentary posted on his website Tuesday, Turner railed against Connecticut state Rep. Michael Lawlor and state Sen. Andrew McDonald for their support of a controversial bill that would have given lay people more power over governance of Roman Catholic churches. Amid an outcry, the bill was withdrawn in March.

Turner also singled out Thomas Jones, a state ethics official, for launching an investigation into whether church leaders violated state lobbying guidelines in connection with their campaign against the measure.

"It is our intent to foment direct action against these individuals personally," Turner wrote. "These beastly government officials should be made an example of as a warning to others in government: Obey the Constitution or die."

In the next paragraph, Turner added: "If any state attorney, police department or court thinks they’re going to get uppity with us about this, I suspect we have enough bullets to put them down, too."

…

Turner was charged with inciting injury to persons or property, a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison, with a minimum one-year sentence.

Provocative and confrontational, Turner has routinely placed the home addresses of his targets on his website, along with maps to show the way. A day before his arrest, he singled out three federal appellate judges who had upheld a ban on handguns in Chicago.

"Let me be the first to say this plainly," Turner wrote. "These judges deserve to be killed."

Source/Full Story: NJ.com

Harold C. Turner, an incendiary blogger and Internet radio host, would seem an unlikely market mover.

But Mr. Turner, known as Hal, who has been labeled a white supremacist by some monitoring groups, once ran for Congress in New Jersey as a Republican and in 2005 supported an Aryan leader suspected of plotting the assassination of a federal judge in Chicago, apparently played a role in driving down bank stocks on Monday.

Mr. Turner, writing on his Web site, the Turner Radio Network, claimed to have been leaked the results of stress tests the Treasury Department has been conducting on the nation’s banks.

The results, which the federal government has promised to release on May 4, were troubling, according to Mr. Turner, who wrote Sunday night that “they are very bad.” Of the nation’s 19 top banks, 16, according to Mr. Turner, are “technically insolvent.”

Source/Full Story:: NYTimes.com