Joliet White Supremacist Pleads Guilty to Torching Black Family's Home
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A Joliet white supremacist pleaded guilty Friday to torching the home of a black family living down the street from his house.
Brian Moudry, 36, faces up to 10 years in federal prison when he is sentenced on April 26. He pleaded to using fire to interfere with the housing rights on the basis of race.
Moudry admitted to pouring gasoline on the home of a black family and setting fire to the house in June 2007. The family of eight children and one adult was asleep inside but escaped the blaze without injury.
According to the plea agreement, Moudry was upset that a black family was renting a house on the same block as his own on Joliet's South Reed Street. He set the fire in hopes of driving them out and to intimidate the owner of the home, the agreement says.
Two other men who had been drinking with Moudry the night before the fire were arrested in the immediate aftermath of the blaze. Moudry was not taken into custody or charged.
One of the men was released without charge soon after his arrest. The other had an arson case pending against him for nearly nine months before prosecutors dropped it.
Moudry was arrested in May, nearly five years after the fire. He has been in custody at Chicago's Metropolitan Correctional Center since he was picked up by FBI agents more than seven months ago.
Moudry is a disciple of incarcerated white power leader Matt Hale, who was imprisoned for plotting to kill U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow.
In March 2005, federal agents hauled Moudry and some of his associates in for questioning after Hale was suspected of ordering the execution-style slayings of Judge Humphrey Lefkow's husband and mother. The killings turned out to be unrelated to Hale, Moudry or their group.
Before he was questioned by the feds in 2005, Moudry organized a series of white power rallies in and around Joliet. His house in Joliet's sleepy Reedswood neighborhood was targeted in a gun attack following a 2004 white power demonstration.
