JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A black man says Edgar Ray Killen, a reputed Ku Klux Klan leader imprisoned for three civil rights workers' deaths in Mississippi, gave him a power of attorney and land rights when they shared a penitentiary cell. Former inmate James Stern said at a news conference Thursday that he also owns book and movie rights to Killen's life story. Stern said he transferred 40 acres of Killen's land last month to a nonprofit under his control. Killen's lawyer, Robert Ratliff, says Killen denies signing over anything to Stern. Ratliff says he'll defend Killen's property rights because he's 87, has a brain injury and people try to exploit him or profit from being associated with him. Killen is serving 60 years in prison for manslaughter in the 1964 deaths.
Ex-inmate: Reputed Klansman ceded land rights
You are here
-
FILE - Reputed Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen, is shown in this June 20, 2005 file photograph taken in Philadelphia, Miss. James Stern, a black man who was a cellmate in a Mississippi prison with Killen, says that he gave him power of attorney while in prison and has taken control of 40 acres of Killen's land, with an acre to be set aside for a civil rights memorial at a Thursday, June 14, 2012 news conference in Jackson, Miss. Killen was convicted on June 21, 2005 _ exactly 41 years after Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman were killed. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)
-
James Stern of Jackson, Miss., shows documents that allege reputed Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen gave him power of attorney while they were cellmates at the Mississippi State Penitentiary and he has taken control of 40 acres of Killen’s land, at a news conference in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, June 14, 2012. Killen’s lawyer says the man has no right to the property. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
-
James Stern of Jackson, Miss., shows a video on his smartphone of himself, left, filing for the deed to the 40 acres of land at the Neshoba County Chancery Clerk's office in Philadelphia, that he was allegedly given by his former Mississippi State Penitentiary cellmate reputed Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen at a Thursday, June 14, 2012 news conference in Jackson, Miss. Stern alleges Killen gave him power of attorney and that Killen and his wife Betty Jo also signed releases giving him the rights to their story for book and movie deals. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Comments