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Will W. Williams II, the head of the neo-Nazi hate group National Alliance (NA) faces sentencing Oct. 10 in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, after being convicted Wednesday of misdemeanor battery on one of his former employees.

Williams, a 71-year-old who lives near Laurel Bloomery, Tennessee, is barred by the conditions of his bond from contacting the victim, a former clerk for the National Alliance group, Garland DeCourcy, or returning to the group鈥檚 compound near Mill Point, West Virginia in the southeast part of the state, about four hours from where he currently lives.

The charges and conviction stem from an incident on Sept. 30, 2015. Police said Williams allegedly attempted to beat and strangle DeCourcy, a slight but scrappy middle-aged woman who had been employed as a clerk at NA聽headquarters since April 2015.

DeCourcy told police that Michael Oljaca, who also worked for the National Alliance, pried Williams鈥� hands from her neck and pushed him away.
Oljaca told police he was standing outside the doorway to DeCourcy鈥檚 office and saw Williams get up from his chair and lunge toward DeCourcy while making a motion with his left hand to 鈥渟mack her.鈥� Oljaca told officers Williams began choking DeCourcy with his right hand. Oljaca said he pulled Williams off of DeCourcy and had to physically restrain him.

Police arrested Williams at a time of turmoil for National Alliance. Williams and other former prominent members of the alliance聽were involved in an ugly dispute over control of its remaining resources, including a sprawling West Virginia compound and inventory of racist merchandise.

That merchandise once included thousands of copies of Williams鈥� 1990s comic 鈥淭he Saga of White Will,鈥� that frequently depicted its protagonist, modeled on Williams, beating up Jewish people and confronting people of color. The comic was designed to attract high-school age recruits to the NA. Williams was barred by court order from entering the Mill Point compound pending his trial for that assault.

The unraveling of the National Alliance

The conviction is the latest problem for the National Alliance, which was founded by William Luther Pierce in 1970. The once-thriving group built a mountaintop compound in Mill Point, funded by National Alliance鈥檚 successful white power music publishing subsidiary Resistance Records.

The group was the premier racist extremist organization in the U.S. at the time of Pierce鈥檚 death in 2002. National Alliance had more than 1,400 vetted, dues-paying members. The NA also commanded a strong propaganda wing that generated more than a million dollars a year in income through its white power music label, Resistance Records, and its publishing house, National Vanguard Books.

The National Vanguard Books catalog included Pierce鈥檚 pseudonymously published novel The Turner Diaries, which depicts a near-future race war kicked off by the government seizure of firearms that ultimately results in a violent government overthrow and the extermination of all people of color, Jews聽and LGBT individuals.

The Turner Diaries came to function as a terror manual. Bob Matthews, who broke away from the National Alliance in 1983, modeled his terror cell The Order on a group called The Organization from The Turner Diaries that waged guerilla warfare against the System, which was depicted as a government under Jewish control. Photocopied pages from The Turner Diaries were also found in plastic bags in Timothy McVeigh鈥檚 vehicle in the aftermath of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 and injured more than 680.

Pierce founded the NA out of the breakup of a pro-segregation organizing outfit known as 鈥淵outh for Wallace,鈥� which backed notorious segregationist Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace鈥檚 presidential campaign. The NA has floundered under various leaders since Pierce鈥檚 death.

Erich Gliebe, a former professional boxer, was severely undermined in his capacity as NA boss after two scandals involving Gliebe鈥檚 fondness for strippers. In 2005, Gliebe was demoted to running the NA鈥檚 record label. Gliebe resumed leadership of the NA after his would-be replacement Shaun Walker was arrested and convicted in 2006 on civil rights charges for his role in planning several attacks in Salt Lake City, Utah, bars in the early 2000s. He was released from federal prison in 2009.

In early 2014, Will Williams and Kevin Alfred Strom launched a bid to take over and rehabilitate the languishing Alliance after Gliebe began shuttering the group鈥檚 websites and preparing to liquidate its assets.

Leo Kim photo