White nationalist figurehead Matthew Heimbach was arrested on felony domestic violence-related charges Tuesday, according to court records filed in Orange County, Indiana.
The online records show Heimbach was charged with one count of battery and another of domestic battery committed in the presence of a child under 16 years old. He was released on $1,000 cash bond.
Heimbach, 26, is the head of the Traditionalist Worker Party, a neo-Nazi group that advocates for the establishment of an “independent White ethno-state in North America.” He lives in rural Paoli, Indiana with his wife and young sons.
The Orange County prosecutor’s office and court were both closed by the time TPM reached out on Tuesday afternoon. Heimbach did not respond to TPM’s call, email or text message requesting comment.
Heimbach last year pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct for shoving a young black protester at a Trump campaign rally in Louisville, Kentucky. He had to pay a $145 fine, take anger management classes and stay out of trouble with the law for two years—a provision he may have violated with his latest domestic violence arrest.
Heimbach has been a fixture at other recent white nationalist events, helping organize a “White Lives Matter” rally in Tennessee last fall and brawling with counter-protesters outside of Richard Spencer’s speech at Michigan State University last week.
That event exposed deep fissures in the already strained U.S. white nationalist movement. Spencer announced that he’s quitting his flailing college tour as the events, which are often met with mass protests by anti-racist activists, are no longer “fun.” Spencer’s longtime ally and attorney Kyle Bristow quit the movement outright.
Traditional Worker Party spokesman Matthew Parrott, who is Heimbach’s father-in-law, has announced that he is walking away from the group. In a Monday night post on Gab, a social network popular among the racist far-right, Parrott announced that he would “fully and permanently resign.”
Reached by the Southern Poverty Law Center on Tuesday, Parrott said, “I’m done. I’m out. SPLC has won. Matt Parrott is out of the game.”
