US army veteran wore wire for FBI to expose KKK members

He lived a secret double life. At times the US army veteran donned a white robe and hood as a hit man for the Ku Klux Klan in north Florida. He attended clandestine meetings and participated in cross burnings. He even helped plan the murder of a Black man.

One minor mistake, one tell, he believed, meant a certain, violent death.

Before such meetings, he would sit alone in his truck, using deep breathing techniques he learned as an army-trained sniper.

The married father of four would help the federal government foil at least two murder plots, according to court records from the criminal trial for two of the klansmen.

He was also an active informant when the FBI exposed klan members working as law enforcement officers in Florida at city, county and state levels.

Today, he and his family live under new names in a Florida subdivision. Apart from testifying in court, the 50-year-old has never discussed his undercover work in the KKK publicly.

The FBI first asked Moore to infiltrate a klan group called the United Northern and Southern Knights of the KKK in rural north Florida in 2007.

At klan gatherings, Moore noted license plate numbers and other identifying information of suspected law enforcement officers who were members.

Moore said he noted connections between the hate group and law enforcement in Florida and Georgia, coming across dozens of police officers, prison guards, sheriff deputies and other law enforcement officers who were involved with the klan and outlaw motorcycle clubs.

In 2006, the FBI circulated an assessment about the klan and other groups trying to infiltrate law enforcement.

The FBI did not answer a series of questions sent by the AP.

Moore was not a klansman before working for the FBI, he said, and never adopted their racist ideology.

He worked for the FBI in two stints. In 2013 he was asked to infiltrate the Florida chapter of a national group called the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

Moore alerted the FBI and was approved to make secret recordings.

He captured discussions of the murder plot that would lead to criminal convictions for the three klansmen.

Over his decade inside, Moore said his list of other law enforcement officers tied to the klan grew. The links, he said, were commonplace in Florida and Georgia, and easier to identify once he was inside.

Moore said the three current and former prison guards implicated in the murder plot case operated among a group of other officer-klan members at the Reception and Medical Center prison in Lake Butler, Florida, actively recruiting at the prison.