The Kentucky based Ku Klux Klan organization, whose members were brought to trial for the brutal assault of a latino teenager, may go bankrupt after being ordered to pay $2.5 million in damages.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, who sued the supremacist organization on behalf of the teenager, fought the case with the sole motive of reducing them to penury.
On Friday, a jury ordered the grand wizard of the Imperial Klans of America, Ron Edwards, and two of its former lieutenants to pay 19 year old Jordan Gruver $1.5 million for lost wages and medical expenses and Edwards to pay $1 million in punitive damages.
Edwards plans to appeal the verdict and menacingly stated that the KKK would continue to remain active.
The trial came about as a result of a violent assault against Gruver, who is of Panamanian decent, at a fair in 2006. As a result of the attack, Gruver suffered a broke jaw, bruised ribs and permanent nerve damage to his left arm. He also suffers from post- traumatic stress syndrome.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, founded by Morris Dees who represented Gruver in this trial, is a unique organisation that has set a precedent in the U.S. for crippling and bankrupting some of the most virulent hate groups. It has successfully brought about a $7 million verdict against the United Klans of America in 1987 for the lynching of Michael Donald in Mobile Alabama, a $12.4 million verdict against the White Aryan Resistance in 1990 for the brutal murder of an Ethiopian student in Portland and a $6.3 million verdict against the Aryan Nations in 2000.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, who sued the supremacist organization on behalf of the teenager, fought the case with the sole motive of reducing them to penury.
On Friday, a jury ordered the grand wizard of the Imperial Klans of America, Ron Edwards, and two of its former lieutenants to pay 19 year old Jordan Gruver $1.5 million for lost wages and medical expenses and Edwards to pay $1 million in punitive damages.
Edwards plans to appeal the verdict and menacingly stated that the KKK would continue to remain active.
The trial came about as a result of a violent assault against Gruver, who is of Panamanian decent, at a fair in 2006. As a result of the attack, Gruver suffered a broke jaw, bruised ribs and permanent nerve damage to his left arm. He also suffers from post- traumatic stress syndrome.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, founded by Morris Dees who represented Gruver in this trial, is a unique organisation that has set a precedent in the U.S. for crippling and bankrupting some of the most virulent hate groups. It has successfully brought about a $7 million verdict against the United Klans of America in 1987 for the lynching of Michael Donald in Mobile Alabama, a $12.4 million verdict against the White Aryan Resistance in 1990 for the brutal murder of an Ethiopian student in Portland and a $6.3 million verdict against the Aryan Nations in 2000.
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