Neo-Nazi leader arrested on child porn charges

Jan. 5, 2007 -- Kevin Alfred Strom, a major American neo-Nazi leader for almost 20 years, was arrested by federal agents in Virginia Thursday night and charged with possession of child pornography and witness tampering.

Court records indicate federal agents found pornographic pictures had been on Strom's computer hard drive between October 2005 and last August. Strom was also charged with trying to intimidate an unnamed witness against him.

Strom, founder of the National Vanguard white supremacist group, took a "leave of absence" from his post as leader of that group last July 18, citing "health and family matters." In a statement at the time, Strom said he had "made mistakes, sometimes serious ones," during his life, but he gave no further hint of trouble.

Strom goes before a federal judge today for arraignment.

Born in 1956, Strom had already joined the extreme-right John Birch Society before he finished high school. In the late 1970s, he became a follower of William Pierce, founder of the notorious National Alliance neo-Nazi group. In that role, he started a radio show, and became known as the group's second "intellectual," after Pierce, though he was attacked for an allegedly effeminate voice and manner. When Pierce died in 2002, Strom remained with the Alliance for a time, but broke away to form National Vanguard after a 2005 dispute with other Alliance leaders.

Strom's interest in young girls was well known. While living at the Alliance's West Virginia compound in the 1990s, and later, living with his then-wife Kirsten Kaiser in Minnesota, he hosted a website with a huge section devoted to "feminine beauty." In practical terms, that meant he posted dozens of photographs of attractive, very young, white girls, many in bikinis. He was particularly fond of the then-child actress Brooke Shields, who he ran several photographs of astride a horse.

"The beauty of the women and girls of our race has inspired our greatest poets, artists, and writers throughout our history," Strom wrote on his site at the time. "[I]f anything is sacred, our girls and women are, and they must be protected from the degradation and degeneracy that is inherent in multiculturalism."

"The website had some National Socialist stuff, but it also had all these pictures of girls who were about 12," Kaiser, 44, told the Intelligence Report after learning of the arrest of Strom, whom she divorced in 1999 after having three children by him. "He used to talk about [the 18th century composer Antonio] Vivaldi, too, saying the reason he was able to write such wonderful music was that he worked at an all-girls school [in Venice]. Kevin also used to say that the only sport he was interested in was nymphet baseball, whatever that means. And he had all these paintings all over the house of water nymphs. He really liked that stuff."

Kaiser, who wrote the 2003 book Bondage of Self about her experiences with Strom and the Alliance, said she was contacted last November by Strom's current wife, Elisha Strom. Elisha, 31, told her that she had left her husband, who lives in Charlottesville, Va., last summer. Then she made a surprising statement.

"She said that for the first two years of her marriage she tried to figure out what was wrong with her [because Strom showed no sexual interest in her], and for the second two years she tried to figure out what was wrong with him," recalled Kaiser, who was interviewed by the FBI about her ex-husband's sexual proclivities last November. "The fact is, he wasn't interested [sexually] in me, either, once we got married, and I never could figure out what was wrong with me."

Strom's group, National Vanguard, grew rapidly when it was first formed in 2005, setting up 15 chapters in just its first month of existence and absorbing hundreds of disgruntled former National Alliance members. But it has shrunk in recent months, and is far less active than its neo-Nazi competitors.

Source: SPLCenter