Federal agents arrested Heidi Beirich, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s former chief financial officer, on Wednesday morning in California, making her the first individual charged in a widening Justice Department fraud case against the once-untouchable “hate group” tracking organization.

Beirich made her initial court appearance in the Central District of California on Wednesday afternoon, according to a Justice Department press release announcing a second indictment by a federal grand jury in Montgomery, Alabama. Her charges include conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.

The new indictment accuses Beirich of overseeing donor-funded payments to informants who infiltrated certain groups on the SPLC’s behalf. One payment recipient has been described as an imperial wizard in the Ku Klux Klan. 

Prosecutors allege Beirich also carried on a years-long romantic relationship with a separate informant, identified in court papers as “F-9,” who infiltrated the neo-Nazi group National Alliance. The SPLC paid F-9 more than $1.2 million since 2007, and between 2015 and 2021, roughly $140,000 in donor money allegedly flowed through a shell company into bank accounts Beirich shared with him.

The case against the SPLC has grown steadily since the organization was first indicted in April on 11 counts of wire fraud, false statements to a bank, and money laundering conspiracy tied to $3 million in donor funds allegedly funneled to extremists. A June indictment expanded that to nine fictitious corporate entities, and this week’s second indictment pushes the total traced funds past $4 million while adding both Beirich and an additional money-laundering count against the organization itself.

U.S. Attorney Thomas Govan, whose office is prosecuting the case, said the latest indictment “reflects the continued work of federal investigators and prosecutors in examining this alleged scheme.” He added, “We look forward to presenting the evidence in court and allowing the judicial process to determine the facts and the defendants’ responsibility for the alleged crimes.”

Attorney General Todd Blanche, addressing the case at an unrelated news conference Wednesday, said the new charges show “exactly what we said would happen in a case like this, which is that our investigators and the U.S. attorneys and the agents working the case will keep on working it even after the initial indictment.”

Beirich’s attorney, Michael J. Proctor, pushed back forcefully on the charges. “Dr. Beirich is innocent, and this case is without merit,” he said in a statement calling the charges “politically motivated.”

The SPLC has likewise denied wrongdoing as an organization, rejecting claims that it misled donors and maintaining that its informant payments were consistent with its mission of exposing extremist groups from the inside. The organization previously sought to have the case dismissed as vindictive prosecution by the Trump administration, but a federal judge rejected that argument last week, allowing the case to proceed.

Beirich formerly led the SPLC’s “hate-group” tracking operation before moving into the CFO role, giving her direct oversight of both the organization’s surveillance work and the finances now at the center of the federal investigation. 

Tony Perkins, the president of Family Research Council, which was famously targeted with a mass-murder attempt in 2012 after the shooter found the organization on the SPLC’s hate map, said he is “thankful that justice is being pursued.” 

Perkins added, “I believe more will be revealed about the Left’s conspiracy to silence Christians and conservatives, and the SPLC was at the hub. Next, the DOJ needs to start knocking on the doors of the banks that were a part of the effort to de-bank Christians and conservatives.”