Jury Selection Begins in Trial of Ex-Klan Leader
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Jury selection began Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court in the trial of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon Tom Metzger and three others, more than seven years after three crosses were burned in a predominantly black neighborhood in Lake View Terrace.
Metzger, 52, of Fallbrook, Stanley Witek, 58, Brad Kelly, 29, and Erich Schmidt, 26, are charged with one felony count of conspiracy to violate a municipal fire code and two misdemeanors. If convicted of all charges, the defendants face a maximum sentence of 3 1/2 years.
The Dec. 3, 1983, cross-burning, which defendants maintained was in honor of a white police officer slain by a black man, was captured on videotape by Peter Lake, a free-lance journalist who had infiltrated the white supremacist group.
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