He became widely known in 1999 when a supporter named Benjamin Smith went on a racially motivated shooting spree in Illinois and Indiana, killing two people, including former Northwestern University basketball coach Ricky Byrdsong, and wounding nine others.
Hale, who called himself the Pontifex Maximus of his self-styled World Church of the Creator, said Smith was a martyr "who gave his life for us." After Lefkow ordered the group to change its name, Hale said a "state of war" existed between the judge and the organization.
The bodies of the husband and mother of U.S. Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow were found in their home on Chicago's North Side.
(Jeff Roberson -- AP)
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Hale's dispute with Lefkow began with a civil lawsuit filed by an Oregon church with a similar name that feared people would link it to Hale's racist message. Lefkow sided with Hale, but an appeals court overruled her. When Hale and his colleagues refused to stop using the name, she ordered them held in contempt.
While the case was working its way through the courts, prosecutors said later, Hale -- who called Lefkow "corrupt" and a "probable Jew" -- asked his security chief for Lefkow's home address and tried to persuade him to assassinate her. The security chief was a federal informant who secretly taped Hale soliciting the judge's murder.
White supremacists viewed Hale as a political prisoner and raised money for his defense. Slurs against Lefkow and her family were common. A relatively mild one called her a "sycophantic cow" who did the "Jews' bidding."
At least three times, Potok said, the Lefkows' home address was posted on the Web.
Lefkow refused to pass the trademark case to another judge, writing in 2003 that Hale should not be allowed "to intimidate a judge off the case." She noted that Hale had said he wanted to "exterminate" her, but said his "is a one-sided war in which this court is not embroiled."
Besides, she wrote, she had not seen or heard of "any suspicious conduct by any member of World Church in or around her home, her office or places that her immediate family members frequent."
Hale's conviction in April 2004 brought a sense of relief to the judge and her family. Michael Lefkow thanked the law officers and friends who had helped the Lefkows and said, "We hope Mr. Hale will repent of his advocacy of evil."
Staff writer Christopher Lee contributed to this report, as did special correspondent Kari Lydersen in Chicago, news researcher Madonna Lebling and research editor Lucy Shackelford.
