The Epoch Times | Illinois White Supremacist Given 40-Year Sentence

White supremacist Matthew Hale was sentenced Wednesday to 40 years in prison for plotting to assassinate a federal judge whose husband and elderly mother were later slain by another man angry at the judge. Hale, 33, a neo-Nazi who preached racist rhetoric as leader of his Illinois-based group, “World Church of the Creator,” was convicted a year ago of soliciting the murder of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow. Hale’s solicitation to have Lefkow murdered was characterized as terrorism by prosecutors, who urged U.S. District Judge James Moody to levy the harshest possible sentence. Hale, a law school graduate acting as his own attorney, said no crime had been committed and insisted he be sentenced to eight years or less. Lefkow had presided over a trademark case that stripped Hale’s group of its name and resulted in fines that led Hale to ask his security chief, an FBI informant who secretly taped their conversations, to kill her.