Alt-right extraordinaire and Towson University grad Matthew Heimbach has been arrested for the second time in three years, and the latest incident was entirely due to an ugly domestic-violence incident stemming from a love triangle, rather than a protest.
Thanks to an off-kilter December 2016 feature from The New York Times (and some other national coverage), the last big news we heard of the founder of Towson’s now-defunct “White Student Union” was that he was living happily with his wife and baby son in Indiana.
“The political establishment has made an entire generation of young white men and women into fascists, and that’s a beautiful thing!” he cheered in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory.
But the picture appears less rosy in 2018. A report from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups around the United States, says Heimbach was charged with battery in Paoli, Indiana, this week after he allegedly attacked his wife and his chief spokesman, Matt Parrott.
A police report shared by SPLC indicates that Parrott said his wife and Heimbach were having an affair for three months, but claimed they had recently ended it. Parrott and his step daughter didn’t believe it, so they had Parrott’s wife try to bait Heimbach into hooking up with her while they watched from a box (and recorded) outside a trailer window.
But the box broke, and Heimbach found out about the plot. Parrott ran around the trailer to confront Heimbach, who, per the police report, “choked him out” to the point where Parrott lost consciousness. (Heimbach allegedly strangled him a second time when Parrott again confronted him that night.)
The officer who arrived on the scene went to Heimbach’s trailer, and said he heard Heimbach and his wife “scuffling” inside after they put their children to bed. Heimbach’s wife said he “had grabbed her by the cheeks” and threw her onto their bed, and also kicked a wall.
Heimbach was charged with two counts of battery, per the police report. He posted $1,000 bail.
The white nationalist could be facing jail time now. In July 2017, he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct for assaulting a black protester at a 2016 Trump rally in Louisville, Kentucky. A judge suspended Heimbach’s 90-day jail sentence so long as he avoided any subsequent arrests in the next two years.
The SPLC says his probation hearing is set for July 1 in Kentucky.
