Aryan Leader Testifies in Jewish Center Shooting Case

The founder of the white supremacist Aryan Nations said Tuesday that he and several followers were called this month before a Los Angeles federal grand jury probing the shooting rampage at the North Valley Jewish Community Center.

Richard Butler, 81, traveled from his 20-acre compound in Hayden Lake, Idaho, to Los Angeles to testify for about an hour Nov. 4, he said in a telephone interview.

The focus of the investigation, Buford O. Furrow Jr., once served as an Aryan Nations security guard.

Furrow surrendered to the FBI after allegedly wounding five people, including three children, at the Jewish center in Granada Hills and killing a Filipino American mail carrier in Chatsworth on Aug. 10.

Although charged with the postal worker’s murder, the 37-year-old Furrow has yet to be indicted by federal authorities in connection with the shootings at the Jewish Community Center. A new indictment would probably involve violations of federal civil rights laws.

Butler, who grew up in East Los Angeles and once worked as an engineer for Lockheed in Palmdale, said he was asked only a few questions about Furrow during his grand jury appearance.

“I told them we had talked a few times and I that haven’t seen him in ages,” Butler said.

He said the prosecutor asking the questions, Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael Gennaco, “seemed more interested in my views on Christian Identity.”

The race-based Christian Identity movement, which dates back 150 years, subscribes to the belief that people of white Northern European descent are the true Israelites who have been tricked out of their birthright by Jews and forced to live with inferiors of other races.

Gennaco, head of the civil rights unit in the federal prosecutor’s office, declined to say whether Butler or anyone else had been subpoenaed, citing grand jury secrecy.

Butler said that several other Aryan Nations members received subpoenas to testify before the same grand jury. He would not name them.

Ray Redfeairn, an aide to Butler, said he personally knew of “five or six and there may be more.”

One of them, Gerald Gruidl, 66, of Post Falls, Idaho, a former chief of staff at the Aryan Nations, said Tuesday that he, too, was questioned about Furrow and the Christian Identity movement.

Gruidl said he refused to answer any questions during grand jury appearances Nov. 4 and Nov. 10. He relented after he was taken before U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian on Nov. 17 and threatened with contempt.

“My lawyer pled my right to freedom of religion and freedom of assembly and my right under the 1st Amendment not to speak, but the judge threw all that out, which only goes to prove that there is no justice for Christians in this country,” Gruidl said.

When he returned to the grand jury hearing room, Gruidl said, he was asked about a fish-fry picnic he attended at Furrow’s home in Metaline Falls, Wash., several years ago. Gruidl said he testified that he drove there with some other people from the Aryan Nations, “but I never liked the guy. I didn’t like his personality. He was not very outgoing.”

Like Butler, Gruidl said the prosecutor seemed more interested in probing his views on the Christian Identity movement.

“That interrogation was not about Furrow,” he said. “They have all the goods they need on Furrow. It was the work of the Jews who are absolutely terrified about the coming racial holy war.”

Accounts vary over when Furrow became involved with the Aryan Nations. Some members have reported first seeing him at the Hayden Lake enclave around 1992. In a previous interview, Butler said that Furrow began attending religious services at the compound in 1994.

Furrow volunteered for guard duty, Butler said, buying a uniform and patches from an Aryan Nations catalog. He kept his uniform neat and took his duties seriously.

At a 1995 Aryan World Congress, where he served as a guard, Furrow met and romanced Debra Mathews, widow of Robert Mathews, founder of the Order, a neo-Nazi group. Mathews was killed in a shootout with authorities in 1984.

The couple wed at the Aryan Nations church in 1996. Butler performed the ceremony. But the marriage soured after a year and the couple parted company.

Although he became a less frequent visitor to the Aryan Nations headquarters, Furrow still apparently adhered to their racist views. When he surrendered to FBI agents in Las Vegas a day after the shootings, he reportedly told them his attack was “a wake-up call to America to kill Jews.”

Furrow is being held without bail at the federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles.

No trial date has been set. The U.S. attorney’s office is considering whether to seek the death penalty against him for the slaying of postal worker Joseph Ileto.

The federal public defender’s office, which is representing Furrow, is expected to mount a defense based on mental impairment.