White Nationalist Richard Spencer Is Shunned As a Summer Resident in Whitefish, Montana, Locals Say

  • Spencer is unable to afford a lawyer for his trial next month over his involvement in a 2017 neo-Nazi rally in Virginia.
  • The lawyer who was representing Spencer in the trial withdrew last summer because he was not being paid.
  • In 2016, Spencer accused a Jewish realtor of blackmailing his mother into selling her Montana property.

White supremacist Richard Spencer, who ran the now-dissolved National Policy Institute from his mother’s $3 million summer house in Whitefish, Montana, has found himself unwelcome amongst the few thousand residents of the town, The New York Times reported.

Leaders in Whitefish told the Times that Spencer’s organization has dissolved and he is unable to afford a lawyer for his October trial regarding his involvement in the 2017 neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in the death of counterprotester Heather Heyer.

Spencer, a summer resident of Whitefish, accused Jewish realtor Tanya Gersh in 2016 of using the threat of protests to blackmail his mother into selling her property, which resulted in another white supremacist, Andrew Anglin, attempting to organize a neo-Nazi march in the town, the Times reported.

No one showed up to the march after state and local officials condemned the anti-Semitic campaign in a bipartisan open letter, making it clear “that ignorance, hatred and threats of violence are unacceptable and have no place in the town of Whitefish, or in any other community in Montana or across this nation.”

“Richard Spencer wanted this to be his happy vacation place where he could play and have fun, and people would just live and let live,” Rabbi Francine Green Roston told the Times. “Then he started suffering social consequences for his hatred.”

In addition to his ex-wife filing for divorce in 2018, Spencer has been denied service in Whitefish establishments and keeps a “very low profile,” according to the Times.

Spencer has also dealt with mounting legal and financial troubles as his attorney, whom he has been unable to pay for his services, withdrew last summer from representing him in a lawsuit over his involvement in the Charlottesville rally, the Associated Press reported.

The trial will begin on October 25 at a federal courthouse in Charlottesville. Case documents reveal that counterprotestors and victims filed a suit against the organizers of the “Unite the Right” rally in Virginia, who will be tried for conspiring to commit racial violence and potential hate crimes.

 

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