A Kentucky man and self-proclaimed Ku Klux Klan leader who was cited for distributing flyers promoting the hate group around several Ohio towns was recently found guilty during a bench trial.
Police say William Bader targeted several towns, including the historically Black village of Lincoln Heights, which drew national attention last month after more than a dozen neo-Nazis held a rally on a highway overpass near the town limits and were caught on traffic cameras flying flags adorned with swastikas.
The demonstration heightened tensions in the community and led to the formation of an armed neighborhood watch that caught Bader driving around town scattering KKK propaganda flyers days after the rally.
Police caught up with Bader in the nearby town of Lockland and issued him a citation for littering.
According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, bodycam footage shows Bader admitting to police that he scattered about 4,000 flyers in 16 towns along I-75 and had just run out when officers caught up with him. He even admitted that every propaganda pamphlet distributed to the Greater Cincinnati area since 2022 had come from his organization.
“It wasn’t just me,” he said to the officer. “There’s quite a few of us out tonight.”
A search of his car yielded the discovery of several flyers, a white sheet that is “commonly worn by KKK members,” and a homemade banner that was hung on the overpass in the aftermath of the neo-Nazi rally that read, “Peace and Love.”
But during his court proceeding, he walked his admission back and denied any wrongdoing. He argued that officers didn’t witness the flyer distribution firsthand and claimed that his fingerprints were not on the flyers, the court was corrupt, and that he directed his members to throw the flyers, but never threw them himself.
The judge fined him $150 for each of the two littering citations and court fees that would round up his total costs to roughly $700.
The 47-year-old told authorities that from the time he was a child, he was raised as a member of the KKK until he was appointed an “imperial wizard” of his local branch.
“Think about if you were on the other side and if you were in the other person’s shoes,” the judge asked Bader. “What would the other person say? Ask yourself that.”
“I grew up like this and nobody’s going to change me,” Bader said, pointing then to the judge, prosecutor, and officers who ticketed him. “Not you, not you, not you.”
