In an article published April 19, 2006, not long after Lawless began her flag-burning ways, the SPLC accused Lawless of sending an April 3 e-mail to neo-Nazi Mark Martin, an Ohio "SS Commander" of the National Socialist Movement, with a list of violent suggestions for intimidating illegal Mexican immigrants. According to the story, titled "Going Lawless," Martin then posted the suggestions to several white-supremacist bulletin boards.
Online next to the article, the SPLC posted a PDF file of the e-mail, with Lawless' e-mail address and a header that reads "How to GET RID OF THEM." The sender informs the addressee that "I'm not ready to come out on this, but I think my ideas are good and should be shared . . . Maybe some of your warriors of the race would be the kind of ppl willing to implement some of these ideas. Please don't use my name. THANKS."
Giulio Sciorio
Giulio Sciorio
Make her day: Lawless channels Dirty Harry while using a Mexican flag as a doormat during the Freedom Riders event.
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Eleven suggestions follow, "some legal, some not-so," as the message states. The not-so-legal recommendations for encouraging Mexicans to "self-deport" include: sabotaging the radio towers of Spanish-language radio stations; stealing the money of "any illegal walking into a bank or check-cashing place"; discouraging Spanish-speaking children from attending public school ("Be creative," it says); intimidating voters at polling places; and pursuing an "anonymous propaganda campaign warning that any further illegal immigrants coming here will be shot, maimed, or seriously messed-up" when they cross the border. One idea on the list is truly sinister in its vagueness:
"Make every illegal alien feel the heat of being a fugitive and a person without proper status," it reads. "I'm sure there are many creative ways to do this. I hear the rednecks in the South are beating up illegals as the textile mills have closed. Use your imagination . . ."
Though the message contains her e-mail address, and though she admits to having corresponded with Mark Martin in the past, Lawless has since denied on several occasions that she authored the e-mail. During a December appearance on Charles Goyette's KFNX-AM 1100 morning show, she repeatedly claimed she had not made statements attributed to her in what turned into a highly contentious segment of the Phoenix jock's radio program. In conversations with New Times, she even went so far as to imply that she had been framed by the SPLC.
"Contrary to what the SPLC thinks, it's not like I have contact with Nazis who get together and plot how we're going to get these little brown people out of our country," insists Lawless, despite her December 16 appearance at the National Vanguard's Winterfest. "That shit is so not happening.
"I looked at the e-mail, and it didn't have full headers on it," she continues. "I thought this is creative writing, probably at its best. I couldn't have smeared myself better unless I'd written it."
Mark Potok, editor of the SPLC's magazine Intelligence Report, says the racist-hunting organization stands behind the article. Potok believes Lawless sent the e-mail, despite her disavowals.
"She apparently denies to some people that she sent an e-mail to the National Socialist Movement, but she has no problem agreeing that she attended a neo-Nazi rally," Potok points out, commenting that regarding the e-mail, "Laine Lawless has never, ever told us that the story was untrue. She's obviously said that to other people, but she has never asked for a retraction, or a correction, or told us that it wasn't so."
Lawless counters that even the FBI must know the electronic missive is a fake, otherwise why hasn't the agency contacted her about it? But when pushed to declare whether she agrees with what the e-mail advocates, she makes a surprising defense of its declarations.
"Everything on that list except for two things is perfectly legal," she contends. "Reporting and observing, turning in illegal aliens, what's illegal about that? That's what the Minutemen do."
And as for the part about robbing illegal aliens at banks and check-cashing places, well, that didn't mean all illegal aliens.
"It seems to me that, as far as I can tell, the suggestion for depriving people of their money was talking about smugglers — smuggling money," she says. "They took that totally out of context, and they placed it as beating up Mexicans and robbing them. That wasn't it."
Lawless swears she has no truck with neo-Nazis, because they don't like gays, and she vehemently rejects the racist label others apply to her — pointing out that she's had many friends of other nationalities and skin colors.
"My prolific relationships with other women have spanned various ages and races over the years, starting when I was 19," Lawless gushes after being asked about an affair with a Filipina that was confirmed through another source.
In general conversation, Lawless drops the occasional Yiddish expression, makes comments like "I sure do miss black people" (referring to the paucity of African-Americans in Phoenix), and says she longs for the "really cheap ethnic restaurants" of the Bay Area. Lawless never slips into outright ethnic slurs, and at a counterprotest to the anti-Prop 300 protest in Glendale during the BCS Championship Game last month at University of Phoenix Stadium, she only spouted vulgarity when addressed with vulgarity.
