Civil trial against Klan group opens today

Case involves beating of Latino at Meade County fair

The Southern Poverty Law Center is hoping to cripple one of the nation's largest Ku Klux Klan groups in a civil trial that begins today in Brandenburg, Ky.

The suit targets the Kentucky-based Imperial Klans of America in the 2006 beating of Jordan Gruver, a Latino teenager, at the Meade County, Ky., fair.

Gruver, who suffered a broken jaw and ribs, is seeking damages against then-Klan member Jarred Hensley, of Cincinnati, who served two years in prison for the attack, and IKA "Imperial Wizard" Ron Edwards, who heads the hate group.

Two others formerly named in the suit -- Andrew Watkins, who was sentenced to three years in prison for the attack, and Joshua Cowles, who was present at the assault -- both agreed to confidential settlements and will be dropped from the civil suit, according to the law center.

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20081112/NEWS01/811120665

BRANDENBURG, Ky. -- Wearing a tattoo on his shaved head that curses his legal opponents, Kentucky Ku Klux Klan leader Ron Edwards urged a Meade County jury to deny damages to a teen beaten by Klansmen at a county fair in 2006.

"I didn't even know they were there," Edwards, the imperial wizard of the nation's second-largest Klan group, said of the Klansmen's presence at the fair. "I don't break the law."

But civil-rights lawyer Morris Dees, whose Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center is seeking monetary damages on behalf of the victim, Jordan Gruver, who is of Panamanian descent, said Edwards promotes violence and should be made to pay millions.

"They were doing exactly what Edwards had programmed them to do," said Dees, who described an organization whose gatherings include speeches and music inciting attendees to harm blacks, Jews and immigrants.

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20081113/NEWS01/811130417/1008

BRANDENBURG, Ky. — The leader of the Kentucky-based Imperial Klans of America once plotted to kill the civil-rights attorney who is now suing him over a hate-crimes assault, a Meade County jury was told yesterday.

Former Klansman Kale Kelly testified that in 1999, Ron Edwards, the IKA's imperial wizard, asked him to assassinate Morris Dees, of the Southern Poverty Law Center, because Dees was suing the Aryan Nation and other white-supremacy groups.

The plot, which was to involve shooting Dees in Idaho, was foiled by an FBI informant, according to Kelly and the law center.

Kelly testified that he served four years in prison on a weapons charge in connection with the scheme, but law center officials said Kelly never implicated Edwards.

"Mr. Edwards is a very dangerous man," said Kelly, a former soldier who testified that he is now "a changed man" before pointing out Edwards as the cause of his extremism.

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20081114/NEWS01/811140429/1008