Officials demand prison for neo-Nazi who tried to turn ND town into whites-only enclave

Officials in a North Dakota town have filed a complaint against the prosecutor who reached a plea agreement with a white supremacist who tried to take over the community and turn it into a whites-only enclave.

Three officials in Leith said Grant County State’s Attorney Todd Schwarz used “inflammatory and vulgar language” when he interviewed two of them about neo-Nazi Craig Cobb walking around the town armed with a rifle.

Mayor Ryan Schock, City Councilman Lee Cook and town website operator Greg Bruce filed the complaint asking to have Schwarz removed from the case and a special prosecutor appointed.

They said Schwarz ignored the town’s wishes to have Cobb receive prison time for terrorizing residents in a case that involved Cook and Bruce.

The 62-year-old Cobb, who is wanted on a hate crime charge in Canada, is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to five misdemeanor counts of menacing and one felony count of terrorizing.

The deal would allow him to avoid further jail time but would put him on supervised probation for four years, and the white supremacist would no longer be allowed to own firearms.

But the mayor said most residents want to see Cobb spend more time behind bars.

"If (Schwarz) had done his job from the beginning, we probably wouldn't be in the situation that we're in," Schock said.

The state’s attorney said he handled the case properly with the assistance of two state attorneys general, arguing the evidence might not have been strong enough to convict Cobb on seven felony counts of terrorizing.

Schwarz said four of the six victims in the case support the plea bargain.

Cobb moved to Leith about two years ago and buying up property in hopes of attracting other white supremacists to overwhelm the town’s other 23 residents at the ballot box and take over.

However, his plan failed to attract many supporters, and Cobb no longer owns any property in the town.

Watch Cobb learn his DNA profile shows African ancestry in this video posted online by YouTube News: