Hate group leader charged with civil rights violation for hanging racist banner over highway in New Hampshire

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New Hampshire authorities have filed a civil complaint against the leader of neo-Nazi group NSC-131, a Pepperell man who also faces criminal charges in Boston for allegedly brawling with a counter-protester outside of an hour of drag queen history last summer, for allegedly hanging a racist banner on public property.

The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office said prosecutors and police in Portsmouth, NH, have launched civil lawsuits against NSC-131 founder Christopher R. Hood Jr., the group itself and a man from the name of Leo Anthony Cullinan for allegedly hanging banners reading Keep New England White from a Route 1 overpass in Portsmouth last July.

Both Mr. Hood and Mr. Cullinan conspired to violate the Civil Rights Act by agreeing, in conjunction with other members of NSC-131, to travel to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and illegally encroach on public property, prosecutors said in a statement. The complaints allege that the actions of Mr. Hood, Mr. Cullinan and NSC-131 were racially motivated.

The Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center have classified the Hoods group as a neo-Nazi organization. Hood made headlines last summer in Boston when he led a protest of a dozen masked men outside the Loring Greenough house in Jamaica Plain, where families gathered for story time, announced the police.

Protesters chanted NSC-131 and shouted anti-pedophile slogans until the event was over, according to police reports and a witness.

Most of the group dispersed but several members began to exchange insults with a group of counter-protesters who had gathered across the street, police said. As the two groups advanced down the road, shouting threats and profanity at each other, Hood and a 27-year-old counter-protester began to fight, falling to the ground and drawing several members of each group into the fray until let the police break up the skirmish. .

Hood was arraigned in West Roxbury City Court in July on a felony charge in connection with the alleged fight. He pleaded not guilty and was released at the time on a personal recognizance. That case remains pending, with the next hearing scheduled for February 16, records show.

Material from previous Globe stories has been used in this report.

Travis Andersen can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @TAGlobe.

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