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Actually, Romley's move may be a blessing to Montgomery, giving him some shelter from demands Arpaio may have regarding the inquiry into MCSO malfeasance.

Hell, Montgomery may even want Arpaio indicted by the feds. Because if he is, Montgomery will never have to worry about paying Joe back for the favors Montgomery's received.

White supremacist Daniel Mahon
Courtesy of the MCSO
White supremacist Daniel Mahon
Former KKK leader Dennis Mahon
Courtesy of the MCSO
Former KKK leader Dennis Mahon

WAR ON W.A.R.

If you Google the name Tristan Moreland, the first thing that comes up is a death threat.

"Tristan Moreland needs killing," reads an obscure entry by "professor rat" on an online e-mail archive. Professor rat doesn't really explain himself beyond this header. But then, the online vermin doesn't really need to.

The name of Special Agent Moreland, a 21-year veteran of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, is known to an assortment of Second Amendment fanatics, illicit traders in firearms, and white supremacists. Moreland's busted many of them over the years, and though he has a wife and two kids, he acknowledges that such threats come with the territory.

"It worries you, honestly," he says. "I'm a human being. But it's not something you don't expect anytime you're in a profession that, by its nature, is going to make certain people unhappy."

On November 4, Moreland, 47, will be honored by the Anti-Defamation League of Arizona with its George Weisz-ADL Law Enforcement Award, during the group's big event of the season, its Torch of Liberty Award Dinner. Past recipients include Phoenix Police Department Lieutenant Heston Silbert, who created the PPD's elite, neo-Nazi-busting Career Criminal Squad.

Moreland's law enforcement career has included participating in the investigations of the Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine massacre, and the 1996 Olympic Park bombing.

He was instrumental in reviving the 2003 cold-case murder of Mesa resident Angela Pinkerton. Though Pinkerton's body — believed to be buried in a massive landfill in Mobile, Arizona — was never recovered, Moreland helped put together the case that sent Pinkerton's killers away for a long, long time.

But the ADL isn't honoring Moreland for the breadth of his career, collaring a diverse panoply of perps — from Mexican mafia types looking to buy hand grenades to domestic terrorists cooking up biological weapons in their kitchens. Rather, they're honoring him for putting twin white supremacists Dennis and Daniel Mahon in stir.

The Mahon brothers are awaiting trial in federal court on charges related to a 2004 bombing that targeted Don Logan, then-director of Scottsdale's Office of Diversity and Dialogue. Logan, an African-American, was severely wounded in the blast that also injured two of his co-workers.

The Mahons' indictment states that the object of the brothers' conspiracy was to "promote racial discord on behalf of the White Aryan Resistance." Now referred to online as "The Insurgent," W.A.R. is a white-supremacist association headed by far-right racist godfather Tom Metzger.

Metzger and Dennis Mahon, a former imperial dragon of the Oklahoma White Knights of Ku Klux Klan, have advocated a "lone wolf" model of leaderless white nationalism, in which small cells or individuals operate secretly, thus leaving fewer clues and witnesses for the authorities and fewer chances for undercover agents to get close to them.

However, Moreland successfully did just that. He used a "cooperating individual," in this case a trailer park femme fatale, of sorts, to snuggle up to the Mahons. Apparently, no hanky-panky occurred, but it was enough to get the middle-aged Mahons to (allegedly) spill their guts to the CI.

Moreland, too, gained entrée to the Mahons' inner circle, so much so that Dennis Mahon made incriminating statements to him, according to court records, and even gave Moreland a tour of the Mahon family residence in Illinois, pointing out a structure, and telling Moreland, "This is where I make my bombs."

Later, when the Mahons were arrested, Moreland spoke to both men separately, with Dennis Mahon telling him, "You know, I think I've seen you before."

Dennis Mahon said he suspected Moreland might be a government agent, but apparently not enough to ward off association with him while the agent was undercover.

Speaking generally, Moreland tells me that such undercover work involves getting used to the racial epithets common to white supremacists and acting as if insane conspiracy theories and anti-Semitism are perfectly normal.

"You've got to get comfortable talking like that," he says. "You can't just say it, and choke on it. You've got to say it with some conviction, and that takes a little time."

I wondered whether Moreland was concerned with his face going public, since Dennis Mahon suggested that Moreland didn't disguise himself. Also, the award from the ADL will up his visibility.

He replied that he's been interviewed on TV and has had his photo in a newspaper, and that such exposure doesn't much affect his ability to go undercover.

"Fortunately, people's memories are very short when it comes to images like that," he says. "I'm going to know certain arenas where I'm not going to work undercover anymore. Will I still work undercover? Sure. But I'll probably work outside of the white-supremacy world for a while, or certainly outside this little group."

The case is not over. Aspects of it are still under investigation, and, with time, it may end up being the French Connection of white-supremacist collars. The case has so far spanned nearly seven years, involved hundreds of ATF agents and other law enforcement, and involved work in a dozen states.

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