ROANOKE, Va., Aug. 28 (UPI) -- A jury has awarded five black tenants $545,000 from a Virginia white supremacist who subjected them to racist harassment.
The jury Friday held William White liable for compensatory damages of $265,000 and his defunct American National Socialist Workers' Party for $280,000 in the civil suit, the Roanoke Times reported.
In the trial in U.S. District Court in Roanoke, five black tenants from a Virginia Beach apartment complex said White harassed them in May 2007 after learning of a bias suit they had filed against their white landlord.
White became so angry when he heard of the litigation that he fired off letters to the women laced with racial slurs.
It was a tactic the neo-Nazi leader used for years before being jailed for two and a half years in 2008 for making racially motivated threats.
One plaintiff said she started getting seizures. Another developed an ulcer. All said they still live in fear of White and his followers.
White, 33, did not testify or present any evidence. The jury did not impose punitive damages.
