WHAS11 coverage

By Chuck Olmstead

Closing arguments wrapped-up on Friday in the case against the Ku Klux Klan, and then it was handed over to the jury.

The jury is deliberating in the civil case against a Ku Klux Klan organization over the beating of a Latino teen.  The incident happened in Meade County at the County Fair, in 2006. 

The Southern Poverty Law Center is suing Imperial Klans of America to basically try and bankrupt the group.  On Friday, the man beaten in the incident, Jordan Gruver, testified; pointing out who he says beat him.   His testimony is central to the case.

Web story updated by Chris Wright

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Jury selection begins in Klan trial

(WHAS11) - Testimony continued Thursday in the civil trial against the imperial Klans of America.

The case centers on the attack of a teenager in Meade County Kentucky which is about 40 miles from Louisville.

The Klan is representing itself in this lawsuit and so the second day of the trial saw Klansmen called to the stand and questioned by other Klan members.

You may not recognize their faces but their symbols are well known and they were among the images jurors saw Thursday as the southern poverty law center sues the Imperial Klans of America, seeking its 17 acre compound in Dawson Spring, Kentucky as compensation for a Klansmen attack on a young teen of Panamanian descent two years ago.

The civil rights group says the Klan’s Imperial Wizard incited them commit the violence that left the teen with a broken jaw, broken arm and lost teeth.

Some of the same Klansmen, who’ve done time for the attack, asserted the Imperial Wizard, Ron Edwards, didn’t put them up to it but they did not deny that something happened.

Whether they acted on their own or are just trying to protect Edwards from losing the Klan’s compound is something jurors must decide and that task could begin Friday.