SEBRING – The resignation of the director of the Aryan Nations neo-Nazi group has shifted the organization’s headquarters to the Sebring area.
A high-ranking member of the Aryan Nations has been living in the Lake Josephine area south of Sebring for more than a year. August Kreis III has been named national director, which officially moves the group’s headquarters to Highlands County.
The move was spurred by the resignation Thursday of the previous national director, Charles Juba, in Kansas City, Mo. Kreis said Juba resigned after intense media exposure directed at white supremacy groups since the slaying of two family members of a federal judge in Chicago.
The husband and mother of U.S. District Court Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow were slain execution-style by a .22-caliber handgun, according to news reports. Matthew Hale, the leader of the prominent white supremacist group World Church of the Creator, has been convicted of threatening the life of Lefkow after she ruled against him in a legal case.
Joe Ray, chief investigator for the Intelligence Project for the Southern Poverty Law Center, a hate group watchdog, estimates Kreis’ Aryan Nations faction has about a dozen members nationwide.
Kreis said he doesn’t like the Sebring area and plans to leave soon.