The Trials and Tribulations of a White Advocate

“Mr. Williams is an unpopular figure, and had I more experience at the time I would have certainly declined this representation.”
Laura Finch, Mr. Williams’ defense lawyer

Pocahontas Show Trial: The Wrongful Conviction of an Unpopular Figure in West Virginia
(See also the webpage for the book.)
William White Williams
Cosmotheist Books, 2021.

Pocahontas Show Trial is the story of the legal and personal challenges experienced by Will Williams from 2014 to 2021 as chairman of the National Alliance (NA). His rather complicated account is intensely personal, yet also deals with broader issues — organizational, sexual, ideological, and judicial — relevant to White activism.

To put the story into context: In July 2002 William Pierce, founder and chairman of the National Alliance died. One anonymous online poster described Pierce as a complex and driven man who gave up a comfortable academic life to become a dissident teacher and prophet. At the time of his death the Alliance was the foremost radical White advocacy group in the country, radical in its original meaning of root, of dealing with root or foundational issues.

After Pierce’s death the organization went into a steady decline. By 2013 the NA had only a handful of members and was essentially bankrupt. The then chairman, Erich Gliebe, was selling off the group’s assets. At this point Williams, the former membership coordinator under Pierce, along with another former member, Kevin Strom, decided to resurrect the organization. After buying Pierce’s 13,000 volume personal library from Gliebe, Williams struck a second deal.   Gliebe was being sued by another group of former members for control of the moribund organization. Williams worked with Gliebe to extract him from this suit by assuming chairmanship of the NA. The above account may appear to be just “movement drama,” but it does have wider ramifications.

One of the broader issues involved in this story is the organizational structure of White advocacy. The Alliance is a membership organization with considerable real assets attractive to grifters, opportunists, and lawfare warriors. Although Gliebe had driven the Alliance into the ditch, the organization still possessed a 350-acre headquarters in West Virginia, a million-dollar property with several buildings, saleable timber, media inventory, and customer lists that could produce cash. Pierce was convinced that only such a real-world organization could achieve long-term success. But such an organization is also vulnerable to damage from both defective supporters and malicious opponents.

The subtitle of this book could have been: “Good Help Is Hard to Find.” Attracting dysfunctional persons has been the bane of White advocacy groups for decades. Williams describes Pierce’s method of recruitment as kissing a lot of frogs to find a prince. Referring to the Grimm Brothers fairy tale, Pierce had to go through a number of prospects before he found a keeper. He was able to do this because of his unquestioned leadership and because he was on-site. When Williams took over control of the NA he was living in Tennessee 200 miles from the Mill Point headquarters. Thus he needed to hire someone to hold down the fort in his absence. The pool of candidates was limited — almost all were what Williams calls toads — no princes.

The first so-called toad encountered was former Chairman Gliebe’s business manager Patrick Martin. After Williams gained access to the Alliance’s financial statements, he found evidence that Martin may have embezzled tens of thousands of dollars from the organization, funds the NA badly needed.

Williams’ first hire, Randolph Dilloway wasn’t any better. Dilloway had worked as a volunteer for the Alliance, and Williams hired him to look after the NA headquarters. “I hired Dilloway tentatively in mid-December 2014, when I was desperate to get someone on the property just to have a presence there.” By the following May, Dilloway had been fired for insubordination and theft. Not too unusual, personalities conflict at work, people quit or get fired, hard feelings result. But that was just the beginning of the story.

Some of the items Dilloway stole were Alliance records that the contemptable thief sold to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for a reported $5,000. The SPLC is a malevolent, multifaceted organization: a propaganda mill, a private spy agency, a fund-raising racket, and a lawfare firm. Much of the materials stolen were invoices from old book sales, but there was at least one item of actionable intelligence for the SPLC’s chief female bloodhound, Heidi Beirich. Beirich is a familiar figure to the Dissident Right. We learn in Show Trial that contrary to popular belief, she is not Jewish, but a self-hating, obese, lesbian of German descent.

Beirich’s one gold nugget was a thirty-year-old letter from Pierce to his attorney that was CC’d to a law student Glen Allen. Decades later Allen was now an attorney working for the city of Baltimore until the SPLC lobbied to get him fired. Not one to take things lying down, Allen, who is the head of the Free Expression Foundation and a contributor to The Occidental Observer, sued the SPLC to defend First Amendment rights.[1]

But with Dilloway gone, things were actually going to get worse with the hiring of Garland DeCourcy, AKA Garland Corse, Elizabeth Corse, Gail Dempsey. It is not clear when DeCourcy began working with the SPLC. Williams writes that she “became another SPLC asset by September 2015.” Williams knew DeCourcy had been an Alliance member many years ago when the author hired her in April 2015. In a coup attempt several months later, DeCourcy staged a “battery incident” in which she claimed Williams assaulted her. Though not apparent at first glance, there was mounting evidence that DeCourcy was mentally unstable, perhaps psychotic. Again, good people are hard to find.

The assault allegation led to Williams’ arrest and most of the book describes his travail dealing with the West Virginia court system. The author had several factors working against him. The NA headquarters is located in Mill Point, Pocahontas County, a backwoods area of West Virginia. The Alliance has had a presence in the county since the 1980s. The relationship with local law enforcement might be described as a bit tense, but not confrontational. The long-time sheriff, Jerry Dale, had bought into the SPLC propaganda depicting the NA as armed and dangerous. Thus once Williams entered the criminal justice system it was unlikely he would get off scot-free regardless of the evidence. The county’s establishment saw this as an opportunity to possibly rid themselves of NA’s presence.

So another of the wider issues involved in the Williams case is the unequal application of the law due to ideological considerations, sometimes called selective enforcement and prosecution. Perhaps the best example of this was the differential treatment afforded the Floyd rioters of the summer of 2020 and the demonstrators who besieged the capitol on January 6th.  Pocahontas County is overwhelmingly White, but conventionally conservative, so many of the locals looked askance at the NA for being non-Christian (Cosmotheist) and unpatriotic (opposing American globalism).

Another issue is the feminization of the judicial system. The author’s case occurred during the height of the #Me Too movement. His accuser was female, he had two female judges and an ineffective female counsel. An example of the anti-male bias: Defense attorney Laura Finch told Williams that they should keep quiet regarding his two combat tours in Vietnam as a Green Beret officer because that might indicate a violent personality. One would think having served honorably in the armed forces would be an asset. To add to the all-female cast, Williams claimed biased coverage from Jaynell Graham, a reporter for The Pocahontas Times.

Williams later learned that one of his judges, Magistrate Carrie Wilfong, had a complaint filed against her for “being drunk at a magistrate meeting, and even while on the bench — including the period when she heard my case.” Ms. Wilfong died in January 2020 at the age of 43 after a “documented history of long-term alcoholism and serious drug addiction.” The courthouse was a nuthouse.

In addition to holding the wrong political/social beliefs and being of the wrong sex, Williams was a victim of courthouse cronyism highlighting the difficulty that an outsider might have finding competent legal representation in a highly rural area. When the author hired Laura Finch to defend him things appeared hopeful. Ms. Finch thought the evidence against him was very weak and they should win the case. But her attitude changed, and she put forth a slipshod defense to say the least. Why? There are several possible reasons, none mutually exclusive. One, the powers that be in Pocahontas County wanted Williams convicted and Finch wanted to remain in good standing with the courthouse crowd. Two, Finch had political ambitions, and a successful defense of a “Nazi” would not add luster to her resume. In 2018 she ran unsuccessfully for state senate, and in 2020 ran again unsuccessfully for county prosecutor. Three, there may have been an element of laziness involved. Lawyers owe their clients the best defense they can provide, but some just go through the motions, putting forth a minimum of effort.

To make a long story short, Williams was convicted of assault. He appealed his conviction all the way to the West Virginia Supreme Court The conviction was upheld. He was sentenced to 20 days in jail, credited with two days served, and got eight days off for good behavior. He probably could have avoided jail time with a plea deal, but refused to plead guilty to an act he says he did not commit.

Williams went on to file two complaints with the West Virginia Judicial Investigative Commission, one for the criminal case and one for a civil case brought against him by DeCourcy. He also filed complaints with the West Virginia Office of Disciplinary Counsel which led to a hearing before the Investigative Panel of the Lawyers Disciplinary Board.  All to no avail. Finally, Williams even filed a complaint against the West Virginia judicial authorities with the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington. He had yet to receive a response as of the book’s publication.

Show Trial is Williams’ personal account — his story, his history. But he gives a convincing account that is extensively documented. There are some suspenseful moments as well. After his December 2015 arrest, he is released from Tygart Valley Regional Jail without transportation, money, or even a hat and coat to hitchhike 75 miles in a winter rain back to his truck parked at Mill Point. Throughout Williams exhibited a tenacity and resilience that overcame criminal charges, civil suits, and a torrent of online attacks to retain leadership of the National Alliance. He was fortunate to have the unwavering support of his wife and helpmate Lana.

Show Trial recounts a complex story involving many more persons and events than mentioned in this short review. The text reflects its self-published origins. The volume would have benefited from some professional structural editing, perhaps a stronger chronological framework. That said the book should be read by attorneys, law students, and anyone interested in the history of the National Alliance. I wonder if a copy is available at the Pocahontas County Public Library.

[1] The Free Expression Foundation, P.O. Box 65242, Baltimore MD 21209.  freeexpressionfoundation.org