6:20 p.m. update:
The trial will resume at 9 a.m. Thursday morning.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs (the five Virginia Beach women suing White) said to expect to hear from all five women and one of their husbands Thursday morning and into Thursday afternoon.
The plaintiffs also intend to play a videotape disposition of White from quite some time ago, where White talks about the case.
White's attorneys told jurors they intend to defend him by arguing the plaintiffs blew the case totally out of proportion and that White was simply practicing free speech.
In May 2007, White sent every tenant at a Virginia Beach section eight housing complex a racially offensive letter and a copy of his Neo-Nazi magazine.
All five women received the mailer. At least one immediately went into hiding. Another woman's small child opened the packet and looked at the magazine.
The five women caught White's ire after they sued their landlord, a man White did not know and has never met, for violating the Fair Housing Act in 2006.
A U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) investigation found the landlord violated the tenants' rights by setting a 10 p.m. curfew which he only enforced on blacks. The report also found the landlord intimidated the tenants after they filed a HUD complaint.
Using a different attorney firm than the one handling their current White lawsuit, they settled out of court with the landlord for between $20,000 to $30,000 apiece, according to courtroom testimony.
White also published the personal information of the lawyer whom represented the women in the landlord case, Kevin Mottley, on at least one white supremacist website, the Vanguard News Network.
A judge later ordered the information taken down but for White the damage was done.
Mottley continued to investigate White and later turned his findings over to the FBI in the spring of 2008. Mottley's investigation was the primary catalyst which set off a sweeping investigation into White resulting in three criminal convictions last December.
One of those convictions was for threatening the five Virginia Beach tenants. At least two of them testified against White in his criminal trial.
Original post:
Roanoke Neo Nazi Bill White's civil trial has begun in federal court.
Five Virginia Beach women are suing White over a racially charged letter White sent them back in the spring of 2007.
For the latest details, watch WSLS 10 On Your Side tonight at 6 p.m.
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