BREAKING: Former SPLC CFO Arrested, AG Blanche Confirms

By Tyler O'Neil, August 12, 2026

[Photo caption:] Former SPLC CFO Heidi Beirich was arrested Tuesday.

Authorities arrested Heidi Beirich, the former chief financial officer of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Tuesday as part of the fraud case against the SPLC, Attorney General Todd Blanche announced.

"My understanding is, today there was an arrest made and there is a new indictment that includes the former CFO of SPLC," Blanche said in a press conference Tuesday.

The Justice Department announced the arrest of Beirich, a 59-year-old resident of Palm Springs, California, after Blanche's press conference.

The SPLC faces federal charges of wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering related to its alleged payments to members of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and other groups. While the center claims it was paying informants in order to combat extremism, the Justice Department claims it was propping up the extremism that it claims it exists to oppose. The Justice Department also claims the SPLC opened bank accounts for fictitious entities to funnel cash to the extremists.

The newly unsealed superseding indictment against the SPLC and Beirich includes the initial 11 counts and two more criminal counts. Three of the counts include Beirich: wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.

A superseding indictment in June alleged that a staff member had engaged in a romantic relationship with a Neo-Nazi who had taken money from the SPLC. The New York Post previously identified Beirich as that staff member. This indictment confirms that report.

"Beirich was also in a relationship with F-9 [an informant in the neo-Nazi group National Alliance]," the indictment states. "During this relationship, Beirich and F-9 shared a house and two bank accounts."

"Between 2015 and 2021, approximately $140,000 in donors' money flowed from the SPLC operating account, through the Tech Writers account, and was ultimately deposited into the joint bank accounts held by F-9 and Beirich," the indictment states. "This amounted to approximately 66% of all money ever deposited into their joint bank accounts. Beirich then used donors' money to pay the couple's personal living expenses."

Beirich left the SPLC in 2020, founding the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism with another former SPLC staffer that year.

"I think, as alleged in the indictment, this individual participated in the scheme, as alleged, I believe she was part of the effort to open bank accounts in completely fictitious companies' names and make payments to individuals for reasons that that were not accurate as as described," Blanche said.

"This is exactly what we said would happen in a case like this, which is that our investigators and the US attorneys and the agents working the case will can keep on working it even after the initial indictment," he added.