He wore a wire, risked his life to expose who was in the KKK
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — For nearly 10 years, Joseph Moore lived a secret double life.
At times the U.S. Army veteran donned a white robe and hood as a hit man for the Ku Klux Klan in North Florida. He attended clandestine meetings and participated in cross burnings. He even helped plan the murder of a Black man.
However, Moore wore something else during his years in the klan — a wire for the FBI. He recorded his conversations with his fellow klansmen, sometimes even captured video, and shared what he learned with federal agents trying to crack down on white supremacists in Florida law enforcement.
One minor mistake, one tell, he believed, meant a certain, violent death.
“I had to realize that this man would shoot me in the face in a heartbeat,” Moore said in a deep, slow drawl. He sat in his living room recently amid twinkling lights on a Christmas tree, remembering a particularly scary meeting in 2015. But it was true of many of his days.
Before such meetings, he would sit alone in his truck, his diaphragm heaving with the deep breathing techniques he learned as an Army-trained sniper.
The married father of four would help the federal government foil at least two murder plots, according to court records from the criminal trial for two of the klansmen. He was also an active informant when the FBI exposed klan members working as law enforcement officers in Florida at the city, county and state levels.
Today, he and his family live under new names in a Florida subdivision of manicured lawns where his kids play in the street. Geese wander slowly between man-made lakes. Apart from testifying in court, the 50-yearold has never discussed his undercover work in the KKK publicly. But he reached out to a reporter after The Associated Press published a series of stories about white supremacists working in Florida’s prisons that were based, in part, on records and recordings detailing his work with the FBI.
“The FBI wanted me to gather as much information about these individuals and confirm their identities,” Moore said of law enforcement officers who were active members of or working with the klan.
“From where I sat, with the intelligence laid out, I can tell you that none of these agencies have any control over any of it. It is more prevalent and consequential than any of them are willing to admit.”
The FBI first asked Moore to infiltrate a klan group called the United Northern and Southern Knights of the KKK in rural north Florida in 2007. At klan gatherings, Moore noted license plate numbers and other identifying information of suspected law enforcement officers who were members.
Moore said he noted connections between the hate group and law enforcement in Florida and Georgia. He said he came across dozens of police officers, prison guards, sheriff deputies and other law enforcement officers who were involved with the klan and outlaw motorcycle clubs.
While operating inside this first klan group, Moore alerted the feds to a plot to murder a Hispanic truck driver. Then, he says, he pointed the FBI toward a deputy with the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, Wayne Kerschner, who was a member of the same group.
During Moore’s years in the United Northern and Southern Knights, the FBI also identified a member of the klan cell working for the Fruitland Park, Florida, police department. Moore said he’d provided identifying information that was useful in that case.
His years as an informant occurred during a critical time for the nation’s domestic terrorism efforts. In 2006, the FBI had circulated an intelligence assessment about the klan and other groups trying to infiltrate law enforcement ranks.
“White supremacist groups have historically engaged in strategic efforts to infiltrate and recruit from law enforcement,” the FBI wrote. The assessment said some in law enforcement were volunteering “professional resources to white supremacist causes with which they sympathize.”
The FBI did not answer a series of questions sent by the AP about Moore’s work as a confidential informant.
CREATING A CHARACTER
Moore was not a klansman before working for the FBI, he said. He said he joined because the government approached him, and asked for his help. As a veteran and Army-trained sniper, he said he felt that if his country asked him to protect the public from domestic terrorists, he had a duty to do so. He saw himself, he said, as a safety net between the violent extremists and the public.
He said he never adopted their racist ideology. To keep a lifeline to his true character, Moore claims to have never used racial slurs while in character — even as his klan brethren tossed them around casually. On FBI recordings reviewed by the AP, he was never heard using racial slurs like his former klan brothers.
But he also acknowledges that successful undercover work required him to change into a wholly different person so that he could convince his klan brothers that he was one of them.
“I laid out a character that had been overseas. That had received medals in combat. That was proven. That had special operations experience — more experience than I had. But someone that they would feel confident would be a useful asset to the organization at a much higher level,” Moore said.
It worked, and Moore was given high-level access and trust.
“If you’re not credible, if you’re not engaged on all levels, you don’t get to go home to your family. So you have to jump all in in order to keep you and your family safe,” he said.
It also required Moore to lie — to his wife, to her parents, to everyone. Nobody could know what he was doing. But eventually, Moore’s wife became suspicious of his activities, and he cracked. He told her and her parents what he was doing.
“You can’t tell them. And they continue to probe because they want to know what’s going on in your life. So there’s this concern that you have to lie to your own family and I didn’t want to be lying to my family,” he said.
Moore was also being treated for bipolar disorder and severe anxiety, which he’d gotten under control with medications. But given his struggles with mental illness, his wife didn’t immediately believe him. He’d eventually take her with him to a few klan gatherings, a decision he regrets because it put her at risk.
When the FBI agents with whom he worked discovered that his wife knew, they ended
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