CHICAGO (AP) — White supremacist Matthew Hale, who is scheduled to be sentenced next week, has asked a federal judge to allow him to remain in a Chicago federal prison for at least six months so he can use an electric typewriter to work on his appeal.
A federal jury convicted Hale last April of soliciting his security chief, who was working as an FBI informant, to kill U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow and obstruction of justice. The judge was not attacked.
Prosecutors said Hale was furious after Lefkow ordered him to stop using the name World Church of the Creator because it had been trademarked by an Oregon-based religious group that has no ties to Hale.
Hale contends in his latest court filing he was referring to a lawyer and not Lefkow in an undercover recording that prosecutors had said was proof that Hale solicited the judge’s murder.
Hale, who has been jailed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago since early 2003, also said the $6,000 legal trust fund created by his father has been spent, leaving him with $150 to his name.
In a separate court filing, Hale, who has represented himself since August, asked to remain at the Chicago prison for at least six months to work on his appeal. Hale said it took 22 months to gain access to an electric typewriter and he fears if he is moved he would be forced to use pencil.
Hale said the appeals court does not accept submissions in pencil.
U.S. District Judge James T. Moody, who was brought from Indiana to preside over Hale’s trial, is scheduled to sentence Hale on April 6.
Last week, federal prosecutors asked in a court filing to have Hale sentenced to up 40 years in prison. Hale has said in court papers that he should not receive more than eight years in prison.
Judge Lefkow’s husband and mother were found shot to death in the basement of the Lefkows’ home in Chicago on Feb. 28. As a result of his conviction, authorities acknowledged Hale’s supporters and other fringe-group followers were a focus of their search for the killers of Michael Lefkow, 64, and Donna Humphrey, 89.
But that investigation ended nine days later on March 9, when Bart Ross, 57, an unemployed electrician from Chicago, committed suicide in a Milwaukee suburb and confessed to the murders in a suicide note. DNA evidence later connected Ross to the crime scene.