Last week, a trusted source provided us with photo evidence linking Minuteman Project Founder Jim Gilchrist to Minuteman Shawna Forde, now under capital indictment for the murder of 9 year old Brisenia Flores and her father Raul, in Arivaca Arizona.
We shared this with our friends at LONG ISLAND WINS, and once the validity of the photo was verified, by Jim Gilchrist, LIW went with this story:
Last week, my colleague Ted Hesson received a copy of two photos from Immigration Clearinghouse. They depict Minuteman leader Jim Gilchrist with accused killer Shawna Forde at a September 2007 border action.
Minuteman Project Founder Jim Gilchrist and MAD founder Shawna Ford shown together in this 2007 photo, looking cozy. This suggests the relationship between the two was not as Gilchrist has claimed, of not knowing Ford.
Forde is accused of leading a Minuteman American Defense operation involving the execution of Raul Flores and his daughter Brisenia. After the killing, many Minutemen claimed that Forde was not part of their movement and that she was just a criminal with no relationship to the several dozen Minuteman groups around the country.
Jim Gilchrist, the co-founder of the Minuteman movement and the head of the Minuteman Project, said as recently as October that he did not have extensive contacts with Forde. He equated one of his three meetings with her to something as innocuous as her sitting in an audience listening to a speech he gave.
The newly available photographs do not in and of themselves prove that Forde was a close ally of Gilchrist’s, nor that she was prominent in the anti-immigrant movement. Unsure of the context of the pictures, Ted Hesson asked Gilchrist to comment on them. On Friday, the Minuteman leader responded. In his e-mail, Gilchrist describes Forde’s involvement with William Gheen of the anti-immigrant ALIPAC, as well as her connections to other anti-immigrant groups like the San Diego Minutemen, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, and the Campo Minutemen.
Here is a substantial part of the reply Ted Hesson received from Gilchrist:
These photos were taken in September of 2007 in Palominas, Az. while I was there to help launch a border observation operation sponsored by Patriot’s Border Alliance (a group that splintered off from Chris Simcox’s now defunct MCDC group).
As I recall, Shawna Forde was at a campsite I visited in Palominas and asked for a photo to be taken by one of the men at that outpost. This was one of three brief meetings I had with Forde from Feb. 2007 to March 2008.
Forde had interactions with several border observation activists on the borders (both Mexican and Canadian) and immigration law enforcement activists (in the Seattle, Wa. area). She was also actively solicited by William Gheen of ALIPAC to act as a fund raiser for him in the Seattle area. She said she refused Gheen’s offers and wanted to work alone…to have her own group. Forde also was apparently trained in field activities by MCDC ( in Az.) and another group called Mountain Minutemen (in Campo, Ca.). She also had a short stint with Jeff Schwilk’s San Diego Minutemen (SDMM), according to her.
When Forde claimed to be a victim of a beating and attempted rape, and then a shooting, in Washington state back in December 2008 and January of 2009, William Gheen of ALIPAC, Jeff Schwilk of SDMM, Brook Young of the defunct Immigration Watchdog (N. Hollywood, Ca.), and Chelene Nightingale of the defunct Save Our State (SOS) in Los Angeles launched an vicious and relentless internet email and blogging campaign designed to emotionally bludgeon Forde into oblivion.
While I make no excuse for Forde’s ALLEGED involvement in the home invasion robbery/homicide for which she is being charged, I do put some of the blame for her ALLEGED errant behavior on the shoulders ofWilliam Gheen, Jeff Schwilk, Brook Young, and Chelene Nightingale for their deliberate and vile actions toward Forde that, in my opinion, may very well have pushed her over the emotional edge, culminating in her ALLEGED involvement in ALLEGED criminal activity.
As a victim myself of similar email and blogging hate campaigns sponsored by these delusional and incurably mean propagandists, it is my opinion that as long as these kinds of people are involved in the immigration law enforcement advocacy movement it’s future success is very bleak.
One of these persons, Chelene Nightingale, is attempting to run for governor of California. Few persons know how really vicious she and her above-mentioned allies really are, in my opinion. Fortunately, Nightingale has about as much chance of becoming governor of California as Charles Manson has of being Pope of the Catholic Church.
Respectfully Yours,
Jim Gilchrist, BAJ, BSBA, MBA, CPA(ret.) – Founder and President, Jim Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project, Inc. [dba The Minuteman Project, Inc.]
Thanks to Ted Hessen and Pat Young of Long Island Wins, for bringing this information forward, at a time I was tied up with other matters.
ALIPAC’s Willy Gheen uses the opportunity to bash Gilchrist
While there is no love lost between myself and Jim Gilchrist, ( on ideological grounds), he’s a saint of the anti movement compared to the detestable antics of ALIPAC’s William Gheen, and the brand of hate he spews, in order to fill his personal bank account.
Gheen responded to the post at LIW, on his own site:
1. These statements are demonstrably false because ALIPAC has never solicited fund raisers period. All funds are raised in the open on our website and with e-mails to those that sign up for our alerts. As the open records show on our FEC reports and here at ALIPAC, we have never asked any other individual or group to raise funds for us
By Gheens own claim, during his beg a thons, he works the phones cajoling past donors and others to contribute to his campaign of hate and fear mongering. It is laughable that he mentions the FEC when he constantly fails to follow the rules and falls back on a “BEST EFFORT” defense to protect his donors from public disclosure as required under FEC rules.
2. ALIPAC’s first contact with Shawna Forde came in the form of an e-mail to my private e-mail account that I assume was given to her by Jim Gilchrist. Forde’s e-mail came during one of the many exchanges where other leaders in our movement tried to reign in or quarantine the inappropriate behavior of Jim Gilchrist and his few remaining supporters.
3. Shawna Forde’s first e-mail to me was attacking ALIPAC claiming she had never heard of us. The e-mail was in defense of Jim Gilchrist.
4. Shawna Forde was assigned the tittle
of Border Operations Manager or something similar by Jim Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project.
Statements 2 & 3 are debatable and probably true, although having no relevance to this debate. Statement 4 is of course true as Gilchrist made this claim on his website as did Ford on hers.
Gheen goes on to say:
ALIPAC’s main involvement with Shawna Forde was when we took actions to prevent the circulation Shawna’s claims and photos of an alleged rape being circulated by Jim Gilchrist of Minuteman Project and Glenn Spencer of American Patrol.
It was clear to our analysts that both Shawna Forde’s claims and her pictures were fictitious and being used for attempted fund raising by Minuteman Project which had already displayed unscrupulous tactics many times before.
Actually Gheen has it only half right as this site, Immigration Clearinghouse was the first to question the validity of her now debunked rape and the phony rape photos she posted on her now defunct website. Our questioning of the phony photos went viral across the internet in short order, bringing out Jim Gilchrist, Glenn Spencer, Chuck Stonex and others to her defense. Gheen’s analyst’s? ALIPAC is one man running the show with 3 or 4 subordinates that he pays slave wages to for their efforts.
It is our understanding that both Jim Gilchrist and Glenn Spencer have been questioned by law enforcement in regards to their association with Shawna Forde. ALIPAC has never been questioned by law enforcement. We have sent all of our documentation dealing with trying to stop Shawna Forde and her financial patron Jim Gilchrist from causing harm to our movement and issue.
It is also our understanding that those who prey on immigrants and are part of the border vigilante movement were questioned about their knowledge of Ford’s activities as would be normal in any criminal investigation. However, some could say the guilty scream the loudest, and Gheen was making sure to distance himself and his lemmings from any involvement with Ford. He contacted and sent information, self serving information to Federal and State authorities trying to tie Gilchrist to Ford, because of his ongoing feud with Gilchrist, allegedly because Gilchrist would not turn over his mailing lists to Gheen.
And Gheen being Gheen, closes his rebuttal with spineless threats against Mr Gilchrist, something William Gheen is famous far.
It is my firm opinion that Jim Gilchrist if finally starting to realize that he has completely destroyed himself in the eyes of the immigration enforcement movement with the exception of a few castaways and people on his fund raising mailing list that have not learned of his partnership with Shawna Forde…. YET.
What he does not realize is that each time he decides to lie about ALIPAC and try to displace blame on us for his own failures, we will take the time to work more on making sure that more people know the truth about Jim Gilchrist, Glenn Spencer, and their partner Shawna Forde.
That is about as clear a threat as one can make to send libelous messages out to the other nativist hate mongers of the right.
Gheen goes on to make this silly little self serving statement:
In this case, Jim Gilchrist worked hard to promote and support Shawna Forde and ALIPAC worked hard to stop or limit Jim Gilchrist and Shawna Forde prior to the murders and afterward.
There is no question that Gilchrist worked hard to promote and support Ford. The posts in support of her were prominent on both Gilchrist and Spencer’s websites until her arrest, at which time they were quickly deleted. However, Gheen and his ALIPAC lemmings did nothing until after Ford’s arrest, and only then, their efforts were to make themselves look “holier than thou”.
Those are the facts,
William Gheen
President, Americans for Legal Immigration PAC
www.alipac.us
The facts as Willy Gheen see’s them which means nothing.
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