Former Southern Poverty Law Center employee Heidi Beirich has been arrested in California and charged in a federal case involving an alleged secret payment system for informants operating inside white supremacist and other extremist groups.
The charges stem from a broader U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the Southern Poverty Law Center's former informant program, which prosecutors allege involved payments that donors were not fully aware of.
Beirich previously led the SPLC's project focused on monitoring extremist and hate groups in the United States.
According to an indictment unsealed Wednesday, prosecutors allege that Beirich helped oversee payments made to individuals who provided information from inside extremist
