Hale is awaiting sentencing for earlier soliciting the murder of the same jurist, U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow. Lawyer Glenn Greenwald told The Associated Press that Hale's mother, Evelyn Hutcheson, asked him a few months ago to pass the message. "She said, 'I don't know what this message means, but Matt made me write it down verbatim so I could read it to you. He said it is an emergency that you communicate this as quickly as possible,"' Greenwald said. Greenwald said he doesn't recall what the message was but said there was no way anyone could understand it unless they were told beforehand what it meant. "The message was almost a cartoonish version of what a coded message would be," he said. Greenwald said he declined to deliver the message. He didn't recall the name of the person who was supposed to receive it and had never dealt with the person when he represented Hale. He said he talked to the FBI last week. Federal authorities closely monitored telephone calls and conversations between Hale and his parents, but Greenwald said an FBI agent on the task force he talked to did not know anything about the message. Hutcheson did not immediately return phone calls Wednesday seeking comment. Neither Chicago police nor the FBI in Chicago would comment. Lefkow found her 64-year-old husband, attorney Michael Lefkow, and 89-year-old mother, Donna Humphrey of Denver, shot to death in her basement when she returned home from work Feb. 28. In the quest for possible motives or leads, police detectives and FBI agents searched Michael Lefkow's law office and spent hours examining his files, a source familiar with the investigation told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Though authorities have said white supremacists are just one aspect of the investigation, Hale and other supremacists immediately drew investigators' attention. Hale, 33, is to be sentenced next month for soliciting an FBI informant to kill Lefkow after she ordered him to stop using the name World Church of the Creator for his group because of a trademark lawsuit. Hale has denied any involvement in the slayings or of soliciting the judge's murder.
Attorney for jailed white supremacist says he was asked to pass coded message
CHICAGO (AP) - An attorney for jailed white supremacist Matthew Hale, who has been a focus of the investigation into the killings of a federal judge's husband and mother, said Wednesday that Hale's mother asked him late last year to relay a coded message from Hale to one of his supporters.
