John Beattle, Canadian neo-Nazi, was sentenced yesterday to six months imprisonment on charges of conspiracy, after a trial in which he and two followers were found to have placed swastikas on the homes of prominent Jews in Toronto.
Magistrate Tupper Bigelow sentenced John Reese, 31, and Robert Wood, 29, the other two defendants, to three months each in jail. Most of the evidence against the three neo-Nazis was given by John Charles Gerrity, who said he was hired as a private detective by the Canadian Jewish Congress and had infiltrated the tiny Nazi group.
Gerrity testified that Beattie had a list of 12 homes of presumed Jews where he was to hang swastika plaques. Gerrity testified also he had been driver of a car used by the three neo-Nazis for that operation and reported on it to police, who seized Beattie after the fourth swastika placement, which was in front of the home of Rabbi Abraham Feinberg, a leading Canadian Reform rabbi.
Wood is now serving an eight-month prison sentence on another charge. Beattie’s appearance here was one of several in recent years stemming from his neo-Nazi activities. In 1965 he touched off a riot in the city’s Allan Park with a violent anti-Semitic harangue.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
