White supremacist Matthew Hale wants to play violin in solitary
Chicago Tribune/September 16, 2014
By Jason Meisner
Years before he was convicted of plotting to kill a Chicago federal judge, white supremacist Matthew Hale was an accomplished violinist said to favor the wistful and passionate concertos of Tchaikovsky.
Now Hale wants to take up the instrument again – this time from his prison cell in the supermax federal prison in Florence, Colo.
Hale, 43, the self-proclaimed Pontifex Maximus of the former World Church of the Creator, said in a news release sent to media outlets by his mother this week that federal officials rejected his “generous settlement offer” to drop his $19 million civil rights lawsuit against prison officials if they would allow him to play his violin in his cell and stop the alleged constitutional violations.
“It’s really the kind of hubris, stupidity, and downright sadism that one should expect from the federal government,” Hale, who is serving a 40-year sentence in solitary confinement, was quoted as saying. “I suspect the defendants could not bear the thought of my actually enjoying myself by my being able to play my beloved violin in my prison cell.”
The suit, pending in federal court in Denver, alleges a host of civil rights violations by prison officials, including barring him from sending and receiving mail and keeping him from delivering sermons to his followers. The prison has also refused to provide him with his religious diet, which consists largely of raw fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, according to the suit.
Jeffrey Dorschner, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Denver, which is representing the prison officials named in the suit, confirmed Tuesday the violin offer was made by Hale but declined further comment, citing the ongoing litigation.
“I can say it is a complex lawsuit that has multiple issues,” Dorschner said.
The Florence supermax prison, dubbed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” isn’t known for nurturing the fine arts. The remote facility is home to some of the nation’s most dangerous prisoners, including 9/11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui, and also houses several infamous Chicago gangsters, among them Jeff Fort, the 67-year-old former leader of the El Rukn street gang who is scheduled for release in 2038.
A federal jury convicted Hale in 2004 of soliciting his security chief to kill U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow because she ordered his supremacist group to change its name after losing a trademark-infringement lawsuit. The security chief was secretly working for the FBI.
Hale, who obtained a law degree before his conviction but was denied a license to practice because of his racist views, has steadfastly maintained his innocence, accusing the government of manufacturing evidence and his former lawyer of incompetence.
At his sentencing hearing in 2005, Hale spoke of the “hell” of being locked up in a small cell 23 hours a day, unable to hear “a bird chirp or see the sun shine or to behold the stars or to hear voices you care about.”
“I'd rather be in Siberia,” said Hale, formerly of downstate East Peoria.
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