Editing Matthew F. Hale (section)

==Court trials and federal convictions==
{{see also|Joan Lefkow#Matthew Hale}}
In 2000, a religious group in [[Oregon]] called the [[Church of the Creator]] sued Hale's organization, the World Church of the Creator, for [[trademark infringement]].<ref name="splc-matt-hale"/>

Hale filed a [[lawsuit]] against [[Joan Lefkow|Judge Joan Lefkow]], the United States district court judge presiding over the trademark infringement case who, after an appeal, had ruled against Hale's organization. Hale stated that the WCOTC was in a "state of war" with Lefkow, and denounced Lefkow in a news conference, claiming that she was biased against him because she was married to a Jewish man and had [[biracial]] grandchildren.<ref name="splc-matt-hale"/>

On January 8, 2003, Hale was arrested, charged with soliciting an undercover [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] (FBI) informant named Tony Evola to kill Lefkow.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Midwest/01/08/white.supremacist/index.html | title=Race extremist jailed in plot to kill judge | publisher=CNN |date=January 9, 2003|access-date=August 17, 2007}}</ref> The FBI sent Evola to join the [[World Church of the Creator]] after Hale gave a speech at the funeral of Benjamin Smith. In March 2000, Evola attended his first World Church of the Creator meeting and won Hale's trust by confronting a protester to the organization. At a meeting the next month in April 2000, Hale invited Evola to be his "head of security" which entailed arranging Hale's travel plans and serving as a personal bodyguard.

During his tenure as bodyguard, Evola recorded conversations that would be later used as evidence against Hale. In a recorded conversation on June 17, 2000, Hale described Smith as a "good man" and a "comrade". On June 23, Hale told Evola and two other followers that he wished Smith "hadn't done it" and lamented the difficulty of [[nonviolent resistance]] through the courts without a license to practice law. On June 29, Evola recorded Hale stating that he "personally still [had the] intention" to follow the law himself because he was being "watched all the time".

On June 30, 2000, the [[Supreme Court of the United States]] refused Hale's appeal to challenge the state of Illinois's denial of his license to practice law. In response Hale recorded on his voicemail that his followers "are free according to our own conscience to take whatever actions we deem necessary to resist this tyranny".

On December 3, 2000, Evola asked Hale, "What are we gonna do about this traitor?" to which Hale responded "[A]ll we can do at this point is be legal and peaceful and follow the rules." On December 17, 2000, Hale communicated with Evola in an Internet [[chatroom]]. Evola asked Hale about rats in reference to a former member's testimony against the [[World Church of the Creator]] in court to which Hale replied, "Of course, it is very important that I be able to say truthfully that I have never advocated anything illegal", yet he "wouldn't mind if something happens to big rats. But I would never want to involve myself in such things." On January 11, 2001, Evola fabricated a story that "everything's in motion" to which Hale responded "I think it would be best, you know, I think it would be best that nothing happened."

Evola further pursued the possibility of a fabricated assassination to which Hale responded the former member had "already been deposed" so killing him was a futile decision. Evola persisted and Hale replied "I'm gonna have to say no to this and I have to say no for a number of reasons." Evola offered to provide Hale with an alibi for the murder, and Hale declined because "what I would be doing or what I would be authorizing would be grounds for disbarment if I had a license and I just hate to go [sic] that." Evola persisted to which Hale stated "I don't want to ever hear about it again." The next day Hale sent an email to Evola about the "idea" and stated, "I must veto it." Hale wrote, "You are very persuasive and obviously I think extremely well of you for your idea", but he concluded, "I must instruct you not to proceed." The discussions between Evola and Hale about Ken Dippold{{who|date=July 2022}} served as a prelude to further discussions about Joan Humphrey Lefkow in December 2002, in which Evola asked if "we gonna exterminate (Lefkow)", to which Hale replied "If you wish to, ah, do anything yourself, you can, you know?".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-7th-circuit/1301994.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190805145250/https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-7th-circuit/1301994.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=August 5, 2019|title=United States v. Hale}}</ref>

On February 28, 2005, Lefkow's mother and husband were murdered at her home on [[Chicago]]'s North Side. Chicago police revealed on March 10 that Bart Ross, a plaintiff in a [[medical malpractice]] case that Lefkow had dismissed, admitted to the murders in a suicide note written before shooting himself during a routine traffic stop in [[Wisconsin]] the previous evening. The murders and suicide were unrelated to Hale or Creativity.<ref>(March 10, 2005). [http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-050310lefkow,1,487378.story "Police: Wisconsin death has Lefkow tie"]. ''Chicago Tribune''.</ref>

On April 6, 2005, Hale was sentenced to a 40-year prison term exactly one year after the trial began for attempting to solicit Lefkow's murder. [[U.S. District Court]] Judge [[James S. Moody Jr.|James Moody]] presided over the sentencing. During the trial, jurors heard more than a dozen tapes of Hale using [[List of ethnic slurs|racial slurs]], including one in which he joked about Benjamin Smith's shooting spree. According to prosecutors, Hale had asked one of his followers named Anthony Evola to kill Lefkow.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.splcenter.org/intel/news/item.jsp?site_area=1&aid=102 |title=Matthew Hale gets maximum 40-year sentence |publisher=[[Southern Poverty Law Center]] |date=April 7, 2005 |access-date=August 17, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060214090434/http://www.splcenter.org/intel/news/item.jsp?site_area=1&aid=102 |archive-date=February 14, 2006 }}</ref> Hale demanded that his attorney Thomas Durkin push for non-whites to be stricken from the jury, and later pushed Durkin to argue that Hale was being persecuted because the government was retaliating against him for "proving" that the 9/11 attacks were committed by Israel; Durkin told Hale he would do neither and for Hale to fire him and find a new attorney or represent himself if he was determined to pursue those avenues. Hale and his few supporters have demanded since his conviction that the DA's office give him a lie-detector test to show his innocence and be released from prison, the office ignoring said demands.

In June 2016, Hale was transferred out of [[ADX Florence]] to medium-security federal prison [[Federal Correctional Institution, Terre Haute|FCI Terre Haute]], Indiana,<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.pjstar.com/news/20160614/matt-hale-moved-out-of-supermax-prison-in-colorado-and-into-indiana-federal-prison|title=Matt Hale moved out of supermax prison in Colorado and into Indiana federal prison|first=Andy|last=Kravetz|work=[[Peoria Journal Star|PJStar.com]]|date=June 14, 2016|access-date=June 14, 2016}}</ref> but by late 2017 was back at Florence.<ref name="pjstar-back">{{cite news | url = https://www.pjstar.com/news/20171128/nick-in-am-east-peoria-white-supremacist-matt-hale-back-in-news | title = Nick in the AM: East Peoria white supremacist Matt Hale back in the news | work = [[PJStar.com]] | edition = online correction | date = November 29, 2017 | location = Peoria Journal Star | access-date = January 30, 2019 }}</ref> In July 2020, Hale was transferred out of ADX once again, this time to [[United States Penitentiary, Marion|USP Marion]], a medium-security institution in [[Illinois]].

Hale's projected release date is April 29, 2036.<ref>BOP register number 15177-424 at {{cite web|title=Find an inmate.|url=https://www.bop.gov/inmateloc/|access-date=September 3, 2016|publisher=Federal Bureau of Prisons}}</ref>{{update after|2037|12|6}} If released on that date, he will be 64 years old.