COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (AP) - In two years, Victoria Keenan went from victim to victor over the Aryan Nations.
Her lawsuit bankrupted the neo-Nazis, and last week she took possession of the hate group's 20-acre compound, which housed and trained some of the nation's most violent racists and anti-Semites.
``We hope to get the evilness out of there and turn it around to something positive,'' said Keenan's son, Jason. They said they plan to sell the compound, perhaps to a human rights organization.
Keenan, 45, and Jason, 21, were chased, shot at and terrorized by Aryan Nations security guards in 1998. Last year they won a negligence lawsuit in civil court, getting a $6.3 million judgment against Aryan founder Richard Butler and his organization.
Life has not been easy for them since.
``There is fear around you all the time and you're watching your back all the time,'' Keenan said.
The Keenans still live in the Coeur d'Alene area - she won't say exactly where - and the lawsuit has made them celebrities.
``Everywhere I go people know me and compliment me and hug me,'' Keenan said.
The court victory was hailed by many in Idaho as proof that the state's reputation as a haven for racists is undeserved. But there are those who support the Aryan Nations' white supremacist philosophy.
``I've gotten some bad responses from people, evil-looking people,'' said Keenan. ``It's been mentally draining.''
The trial last summer drew numerous supporters of Butler to Coeur d'Alene. The Keenans were reviled on web sites maintained by neo-Nazis.
Last October, Keenan and her husband were trailed in a supermarket parking lot by a van with Aryan Nations stickers. They asked the driver, who wore an Aryan Nations cap, what he wanted. ``You will see soon,'' he replied.
The Keenans did not set out to be activists. Victoria Keenan had worked as a food server and bartender, and lived quietly in a rural area. Jason had just returned from a stint in the Job Corps when they were attacked.
The mother and son were driving home from a wedding the night of July 1, 1998, when they drove past the Aryan compound in her 1977 Datsun. Something - a car backfire, a firecracker - made a noise like a gunshot.
Three Aryan Nations security guards, thinking someone had fired at them, jumped into a pickup and chased them. They fired a rifle repeatedly at the Keenans, eventually shooting out a tire and forcing their car into a ditch.
One of the guards grabbed Keenan by the hair, jabbed her ribs with a rifle butt and put a gun to her head. She pleaded for their lives. Then another car approached. The guards stepped back, gave a ``Heil Hitler'' salute and drove off.
Their lawsuit contended Butler, his organization and his second-in-command were negligent in hiring and training the guards. It was essentially a personal-injury case, with Butler and his group penalized for hiring ex-convicts, giving them little training, allowing them to carry weapons and filling them with rage.
``The Keenans are very heroic people,'' said Peter Tepley, a lawyer for the Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center who helped represent them in the lawsuit. ``They stood up against the Aryan Nations and brought it down.''
Jason Keenan recalled the discussions with their local lawyer, Norm Gissel, about whether to proceed with the lawsuit.
``You have to look at who you are going up against. It was not like taking on a next door neighbor for slipping on a sidewalk,'' Jason said. ``This is actually a person who could be considered crazy.''
He hoped Idaho history books would record the moment when the Aryan Nations compound ceased to exist. ``This is pretty much a work of history,'' Jason said.
The compound contains numerous buildings, including Butler's home, a bunkhouse, a guard tower and the chapel of Butler's church.
It cost the Keenans $250,000 to buy the compound - Butler's sole asset - from a U.S. Bankruptcy Court auction. The $95,000 cash the Keenans needed to complete the purchase was lent to them by the SPLC.
Butler, who founded the Aryan Nations 30 years ago, was in the small room with the Keenans as the sale was completed Tuesday. The two sides did not speak or look at each other.
``If he was a true Christian, it seems to me he would apologize to us,'' Victoria said afterward.
Two of the guards who attacked the Keenans were convicted of aggravated assault and sent to prison, while the third was never caught. One of the guards has already been released; another soon will be.
``It makes me nervous and scared,'' Victoria said. ``But there are enough people on our side.''
Butler, who moved to northern Idaho from California in 1973 to found his sect, has vowed to keep preaching from a house in nearby Hayden purchased for him by a wealthy supporter.
He has announced an unprecedented series of public events this year, including marches in Coeur d'Alene and two other towns. His annual Aryan World Congress, which used to draw more than 100 neo-Nazis to Butler's compound, will be held instead at a park nearby.
Victoria Keenan said it is time for others in northern Idaho to stand up to the Aryans.
``It's up to Coeur d'Alene and Sandpoint and everybody to make that stand,'' she said. ``Don't be afraid.''
On the Net:
Southern Poverty Law Center: http://www.splcenter.org/
AP-NY-02-18-01 1311EST
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.