Much like columnist Ann coulter derives her income from writing in support of white supremacist groups, and Tom Metzger would come out in support of hate crimes and who by the way stopped paying taxes in the 1970s and by 1972 his tax protest over the Vietnam War destroyed his thriving television business but introduced him to other tax protesters who, he said, were "secular racists, Christian Identity racists, neo-Nazis, and all other kinds of people filled with hate period.
Oregon civil trial
The group was eventually bankrupted as the result of a civil lawsuit centered on its involvement in the 1988 murder of Mulugeta Seraw, an Ethiopian man who came to the United States to attend college. In 1988, white power skinheads affiliated with WAR were convicted of killing Seraw and sent to prison. Kenneth Mieske said he and the two others killed Seraw "because of his race".[10] Metzger declared that they did a "civic duty" by killing Seraw.[11] Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a civil suit against him, arguing that WAR influenced Seraw's killers by encouraging their group East Side White Pride to commit violence.[12][13]
Metzger accepted an option for a new trial judge during the initial stages of the trial and upon hearing the judge's name [Ancer] Haggerty in exchange for the interim appointed what he thought to be a Jewish named judge only to discover subsequently Judge Ancer Haggerty was African American.[14]
At the trial, WAR national vice president Dave Mazzella testified how the Metzgers instructed WAR members to commit violence against minorities. Tom and John Metzger were found civilly liable under the doctrine of vicarious liability, in which one can be liable for a tort committed by a subordinate or by another person who is taking instructions. The jury returned the largest civil verdict in Oregon history at the time—$12.5 million—against Metzger and WAR.[15] The Metzgers' house was seized, and most of WAR's profits go to paying off the judgment.