FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CR

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14, 1996 (202) 616-2777

TDD (202) 514-1888

TWO KLANSMEN PLEAD GUILTY TO BURNING TWO SOUTH

CAROLINA CHURCHES

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Two former members of the Christian Knights of the Ku

Klux Klan pleaded guilty today to burning two predominantly African American
churches in South Carolina last year. The investigation is being conducted by the
National Church Arson Task Force formalized by President Clinton in June.

Gary Christopher Cox, 23, and Timothy Adron Welch, 24, who were charged today
in a criminal Information with two civil rights conspiracies and two federal arson
charges, admitted to burning the Mt. Zion AME Church in Greeleyville on June 20,
1995, and the Macedonia Baptist Church in Bloomville on the following day.

"Today's pleas once again underscore the seriousness with which the federal
government is pursuing the burning of houses of worship," said Deval L. Patrick,
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, and James E. Johnson, Assistant
Secretary of the Treasury (Enforcement), the co-chairs of the National Church
Arson Task Force. "These arsons are an assault on a basic tenet of American
democracy -- religious freedom."

Judge David C. Norton, of the U.S. District Court in Charleston, accepted the guilty
pleas.

According to the criminal Information, the Ku Klux Klan "advocated the supremacy
of white persons over black, hispanic and other minority persons." It asserted that
the K.K.K. "taught its members that churches attended primarily by black persons
promote the interests of black persons to the detriment of white persons."

Cox and Welch had been charged in federal court in May with burning the
Greeleyville church. In a criminal complaint, unsealed last month, the Justice
Department alleged that the two violated a federal criminal arson statute in setting
the blaze at Mt. Zion AME Church.

Cox and Welch, who face up to 55 years in prison, were arrested on state charges in
June 1995, and have been in jail since that time. The two have agreed to cooperate
with law enforcement authorities in the ongoing investigation into the burning of the
two churches.

"They can scorch our churches but they cannot break the spirit of the community,"
said J. Rene Josey, U.S. Attorney in Columbia.

As part of the plea agreement, the two Klansmen also agreed to plead guilty to state
charges of assault and battery with intent to kill for stabbing a black man in
Berkeley County on June 16, 1995.

Since June 1, 1996, more than 90 church fires across the country have been reported
to federal authorities. Arrests have been made in connection with at least 16 of these
incidents, while another 16 fires have been ruled accidental.

The investigation includes the U.S. Attorneys Office in South Carolina, the FBI, the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Justice Department's Civil Rights
Division, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, the Clarendon County Fire
Department and Sheriff's Office.

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