WASHINGTON (AP) — The Southern Poverty Law Center says it's the subject of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department and faces possible charges over its past use of paid informants to infiltrate extremist groups.
The civil rights group made the announcement on Tuesday, saying President Donald Trump's administration appears to be preparing legal action against it or some of its employees.
“Although we don’t know all the details, the focus appears to be on the SPLC’s prior use of paid confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups,” CEO Bryan Fair said in a statement.
The Justice Department had no immediate comment.
The Southern Poverty Law Center previously paid informants to infiltrate extremist groups and gather information on their activities, often sharing it with local and federal law enforcement, Fair said. It was used to monitor threats of violence, he said, adding that the program was kept quiet to protect the safety of informants.
“When we began working with informants, we were living in the shadow of the height of the Civil Rights Movement, which had seen bombings at churches, state-sponsored violence against demonstrators, and the murders of activists that went unanswered by the justice system,” Fair said. “There is no question that what we learned from informants saved lives.”
He said the organization “will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff, and our work.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which is based in Montgomery, Alabama, was founded in 1971 and used civil litigation to fight white supremacist groups. The nonprofit has become a popular target among Republicans who see it as overly leftist and partisan.
The investigation could add to concerns that Trump's Republican administration is using the Justice Department to go after conservative opponents and his critics. It follows a number of other investigations into Trump foes that have raised questions about whether the law enforcement agency has been turned into a political weapon.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has faced intense criticism from conservatives, who have accused it of unfairly maligning right-wing organizations as extremist groups because of their viewpoints. The center regularly condemns Trump’s rhetoric and policies around voting rights, immigration and other issues.
The center came under fresh scrutiny after the assassination last year of conservative activist Charlie Kirk brought renewed attention to its characterization of the group that Kirk founded and led. The center included a section on that group, Turning Point USA, in a report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2024” that described the group as “A Case Study of the Hard Right in 2024.”
FBI Director Kash Patel said last year that the agency was severing its relationship with the center, which had long provided law enforcement with research on hate crime and domestic extremism. Patel said the center had been turned into a “partisan smear machine,” and he accused it of defaming “mainstream Americans” with its “hate map” that documents alleged anti-government and hate groups inside the United States.
House Republicans hosted a hearing centered on the Southern Poverty Law Center in December, saying it coordinated efforts with President Joe Biden's Democratic administration "to target Christian and conservative Americans and deprive them of their constitutional rights to free speech and free association.”
FILE - Tourists walk past a banner with President Donald Trump hanging on the Department of Justice, Feb. 27, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)
A judge is expected to sentence OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma to forfeit $225 million to the Justice Department on Tuesday, clearing the way for the company to finalize a settlement of thousands of lawsuits it faces over its role in the opioid crisis.
The penalty was agreed to in a 2020 pact to resolve federal civil and criminal probes it was facing. If the judge signs off, other penalties will not be collected in return for Purdue settling the other lawsuits.
After years of legal twists and turns, the settlement was approved by another judge last year and could take effect May 1. It requires members of the Sackler family who own the company to pay up to $7 billion to state, local and Native American tribal governments, some individual victims and others.
Here’s a look at the situation.
Purdue pleaded guilty to three federal criminal charges in November 2020.
The Stamford, Connecticut-based company admitted that it did not have an effective program to keep its powerful prescription painkillers from being diverted to the black market, even though it told the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that it did.
It also admitted that it paid doctors through a speakers program to prescribe the drugs and paid an electronic medical records company to send doctors information on patients that encouraged more opioid prescriptions.
While Purdue produced only a fraction of the opioid pills that flooded the market in the 2000s, advocates have long seen aggressive sales of OxyContin as one of the touchstones of the crisis. At a 1996 event to rally Purdue’s sales force, Richard Sackler, then a top Purdue executive and later president of the company, called for a “blizzard of prescriptions.”
While Purdue is expected to pay $225 million, the government agreed in the plea deal not to collect $5.3 billion in criminal forfeitures and fines and $2.8 billion in civil liabilities. Instead, portions of that money are considered part of the broader settlement — and the federal government will receive a small slice of that.
The broader settlement calls for members of the Sackler family who own the company to contribute up to $7 billion over 15 years. Most of the money is to go to government entities to use to fight the opioid crisis.
It's among the largest in a series of settlements by drugmakers, wholesalers and pharmacies in recent years — and the only major one that includes payments for some individual victims or their survivors.
Together, the settlements are worth more than $50 billion, and most of the money is to be used to address the overdose epidemic.
Under the Purdue deal, members of the Sackler family would be shielded from lawsuits over opioids from those who agree to the payments.
Purdue itself would cease to exist and be replaced by a new company, Knoa Pharma, which would operate for the public benefit and have a board appointed by the states.
The reorganization is considered one of the most complicated ever. By the end of last year, Purdue had paid law firms and other professionals working on all sides of the case more than $1 billion, according to a court filing.
Members of the Sackler family have long been cast as villains in the opioid crisis, seeking to increase profits even as it became clear people were becoming addicted to OxyContin and overdosing.
But no members of the family were charged.
Family members received $10.7 billion in payments from Purdue from 2008 to 2018 -- with nearly half of it used to pay taxes on behalf of Purdue. They have not been paid by the company since 2018 — and the last of them left Purdue's board in 2019.
Under the settlement, they would not object if their names are removed from museums and other institutions they've supported — something that's already been happening.
More than 54,000 people with personal injury claims against Purdue voted to accept the settlement, and 218 voted against it.
Still, some victims and their family members have been pushing back for years, asserting that the settlement and the guilty plea stop short of justice for victims of a crisis that has been linked to 900,000 deaths in the U.S. since 1999.
Tuesday's sentencing is one more chance for them to make that case to a judge.
Susan Ousterman's son, Tyler Cordiero, died at age 24 in 2020 after overdosing on a mixture that included fentanyl after years of using heroin and other opioids. She organized others who lost loved ones to deliver victim impact statements to the court ahead of the sentencing.
She said the aim was to persuade the judge to reject the plea deal and for the U.S. Justice Department to pursue criminal charges against individuals, including Sackler family members.
“It shouldn't be going to states and municipalities,” said Ousterman, noting some governments have not yet used the funds they're received and others have used it in ways not closely linked to fighting the drug crisis. “They're not using that money effectively.”
Associated Press reporter Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this article.
FILE - Cheryl Juaire holds photos of her sons, both of whom died from overdoses, Sean Merrill, left, and Corey Merrill, after making a statement during a hearing in New York on March 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
FILE - A sign with some names of the Sackler family is displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Jan. 17, 2019, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
FILE - Pills spill in an arrangement photo of prescription Oxycodone in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
FILE - Protesters who have lost love ones to the opioid crisis protest outside a courthouse in Boston, Aug. 2, 2019, where a judge heard arguments in a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)
