The former Grand Dragon of the Michigan Ku Klux Klan state chapter was placed in the Lake County jail Thursday on accusations of sending porn and live nude feeds of himself to someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl.
Neil Ray Schmidt, 60, allegedly sent hundreds of images and videos of nude or sexual content to the girl, who was actually an Internet persona made up by undercover detectives in an ongoing sex-predator sting by the Lake County Sheriff's Office.
Schmidt was charged with 256 counts of transmission of material harmful to minors by electronic device as well as one count of prohibited computer transmission.
According to a probable cause affidavit, the porn transmissions from Schmidt occurred in April 2010 on several occasions when Lake County detectives were undercover in an online chat room.
Schmidt, of St. Louis, was transferred to the Lake County jail from a Michigan federal prison where he already was serving 20 years for trying to arrange a sexual encounter through an online chatroom with two undercover detectives in Georgia, masquerading as 14-year-old girls.
According to the FBI in the Georgia case, he was sending sexually explicit videos of himself, as well as images and videos of child pornography in an effort to groom the two 14-year-old girls for an eventual sexual encounter.
Federal prosecutors said when Schmidt arrived 600 miles from St. Louis to the pre-arranged location at the McDonough, Georgia motel in June 2010 to have sex with the teens, he was carrying guns, KKK paraphernalia, sex toys and supplies.
Since his arrest in the Georgia case, Schmidt also has been charged with molesting his granddaughter, according to the FBI.
Smith is also known as Raymond Owens and his first name also has been spelled as Neal.
He is considered to be on hold from the Michigan prison.
