Heidi Beirich, a former executive at the Southern Poverty Law Center, has been charged in a superseding indictment for her alleged role in what the government claims was a fraudulent scheme that duped donors and banks, according to court documents unsealed Wednesday.

Prosecutors have accused the SPLC of telling donors and banks the group was dismantling white supremacist and extremist groups, but instead funneling payments to confidential informants in the groups to fund "violent, racist and extremist activities," court documents said. 

The new indictment marks the first time that an individual connected with the civil rights nonprofit has been charged in the case, which the Justice Department announced in April.

The indictment charges Beirich with wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering, and alleges that she oversaw payments to informants, including one with whom she had a "romantic relationship."

During that alleged relationship with the informant, the indictment says they shared a home and two bank accounts, through which $140,000 flowed from an SPLC-operated account into their joint accounts between 2015 and 2021. She allegedly used some of the funds to pay for personal living expenses, according to the indictment. 

In a statement to CBS News, Beirich's lawyer Michael J. Proctor said that his client is innocent, adding, "this case is without merit."

"We believe the charges against her and the SPLC are politically motivated, and Dr. Beirich has been targeted in this case because of the important work she has done to combat hate groups and extremists," Proctor said, adding, "Violent extremists have not stopped or intimidated Dr. Beirich from her vital work during her time at the SPLC or in the six and a half years after she left the SPLC. Dr. Beirich won't be silenced or intimidated by the government's false and politicized allegations now."

Beirich's arraignment is scheduled for Aug. 19, according to the case docket. 

CNN first reported her arrest.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is facing 11 counts of wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, with prosecutors alleging it defrauded its donors and duped its banks by creating shell accounts to funnel money to insiders who belonged to the same hate groups it pledged to dismantle.

The Southern Poverty Law Center pleaded not guilty to the charges filed in April. 

Beirich previously served as the director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, which is the monitoring and research arm of the nonprofit, according to her LinkedIn profile. She rose through the ranks, starting first as a writer in 1999. She left the SPLC in December 2019.

Beirich was not the target of the Justice Department's original probe, which started in 2018 while Jeff Sessions was attorney general. At the time, the FBI launched a preliminary inquiry into SPLC's chief financial officer under suspicion she was embezzling money from the nonprofit, CBS previously reported.

The case was expanded to investigate possible tax charges in 2019 under Attorney General Bill Barr, with the focus shifting to the SPLC's bank accounts and its payments to informants. The CFO at the time controlled those accounts and was part of the probe.

Ultimately tax charges were never filed in the case and to date, that former CFO has not been criminally charged. During the course of the investigation, IRS agents found that the CFO had created the shell bank accounts with assistance from at least some of the bank employees.

At a press conference Wednesday, Attorney General Todd Blanche mistakenly identified Beirich as the SPLC's "former CFO." 

"I think, as alleged in the indictment, this individual participated in the scheme," he said. "I believe she was part of the effort to open bank accounts… and make payments to individuals for reasons that were not accurate as described," he said, before the indictment was available on the public docket.

Earlier this month, a federal judge denied the SPLC's motion to dismiss the indictment against the group on the grounds of a vindictive prosecution, finding that lawyers for the group "failed to offer some evidence tending to show animus on the part of the prosecutors involved in bringing this case."

Legal experts have previously said they believe the case contains a number of potential legal defects, noting it is not clear from the language in the indictment itself that donors had in fact been misled or that banks were deceived into taking certain actions due to fraud.

Abbe Lowell, who is defending the SPLC in the criminal case, said in a statement Wednesday that the Trump administration's attacks on Beirich are "as legally and factually flawed as their previous attacks."

"This charge reflects a desperate government confronting a weak case, scrambling to make something — anything — stick as we approach trial," he said.

In:

• United States Department of Justice
• Southern Poverty Law Center