Former National Alliance member Lawrence W. Myers, 68, has been identified by multiple ex-associates as the mysterious informant known as “F-9” who allegedly received $1.2 million in Southern Poverty Law Center donor funds while carrying on a romantic relationship with SPLC director Heidi Beirich.
Sources who knew Myers during his time in the white supremacist group told The Post they believe he is the pseudonymous figure described in a recent federal indictment against the Alabama-based anti-hate nonprofit. The charges, filed in April, accuse the SPLC of wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering for allegedly using over $4 million in contributions to embed informants within groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
“Many people, especially [former National Alliance chairman] Erich Gliebe believe that Myers was a federal agent,” one source told The Post.
“[Gliebe] once said he acquired [Myers’s] phone records and he had several calls to the FBI and the SPLC. That’s how [Gliebe] got the smoking gun on Lawrence.”
Myers’s alleged double life extended beyond his supposed work for the SPLC. He was also suspected of feeding information to federal law enforcement, a suspicion that eventually led to his expulsion from the National Alliance for being a spy.
The indictment claims Beirich, who was arrested in August and has pleaded not guilty, shared a house and two bank accounts with F-9, using $140,000 of donor money to cover the couple’s living expenses. Beirich, who never remarried after her husband Kevin Ray Hicks died in 2011, owned properties in Montgomery, Ala. And Ellijay, Ga. During the years covered by the indictment. Since at least 2008, Myers has lived in a North Carolina border town roughly an hour’s drive from Beirich’s Georgia home, though she later moved to California and her hometown of Palm Springs.
The name “Scary Larry” stuck to Myers for reasons beyond his suspected informant status. One former member described an aggressive demeanor and an unsettling awareness of private conversations.
“I think he was listening to my phone calls. He would know things I talked to other people about on the phone,” the former member told The Post.
“I had an overwhelming feeling of danger [in his presence]. I felt like he could have killed me.” The Post found no record of Myers being violent.
In a twist that underscores the incestuous world of extremist informants, Gliebe himself was unmasked by Fox News in July as informant F-42, allegedly paid $155,000 by the SPLC between 2016 and 2023. Old message board posts from 2003 show National Alliance member Fred Streed, who died in February, claiming that “Gliebe — who, incredibly, also later turned out also to be an SPLC informant — was mentored by none other than the known FBI informant and SPLC mole, Lawrence Myers.” Gliebe did not respond to interview requests.
Myers’s background made him an odd fit for the National Alliance from the start. He belonged to a Christian sect that observed Old Testament laws and festivals including the Feast of Tabernacles, putting him at odds with the group’s Cosmotheist beliefs, which reject Christianity for its “Semitic roots.” He spoke Arabic, played guitar, and served as the group’s staff photographer. He also wrote three books on spying and bomb-making, including “Improvised Radio Detonation Techniques,” which details how to “modify a cordless or cellular mobile phone… to detonate explosives,” and “Spycomm: Covert Communication Techniques of the Underground.”
Before joining the National Alliance in the early 2000s, Myers had already inserted himself into the biggest story in the country. In 1996, working for Indiana-based alternative magazine Media Bypass, he became one of only two journalists to secure a sit-down interview with Timothy McVeigh as the Oklahoma City bomber awaited trial. His fawning profile described McVeigh as “neither monster nor madman,” noting: “He smiles easily and often […] His sapphire blue eyes are expressive, and when speaking, he looks directly into your eyes.”
Myers then published an interview with federal grand juror Hoppy Heidelberg alleging government cover-ups in the bombing case. Heidelberg was dismissed in October 1995. The fallout was swift: Myers was reportedly fired in 1996 after readers cancelled subscriptions over suspicions he was a federal operative, though his bosses told Conspiracy Nation they found no proof.
The federal indictment against Beirich offers subtle clues linking F-9 to Myers. F-9 had been an SPLC informant since at least 2003 and infiltrated the National Alliance at the nonprofit’s instruction, matching Myers’s timeline. The informant engaged in “fundraising for the National Alliance.”
“There were few specific fundraising efforts made. The only person who explicitly raised funds was Lawrence Myers, who would run a fundraising meeting segment at every annual leadership conference. He was very good at it,” one National Alliance member told The Post.
F-9 had a base in North Carolina and a personal account at First Citizens Bank, which maintains a branch in Myers’s tiny town of 1,608 residents. Curiously, records show Myers obtained a Georgia fishing license despite being a North Carolina resident, and Beirich’s Georgia home sat on the Coosawattee River, known for black bass and trout.
Not all memories of Myers are menacing. One reformed ex-member described how Myers secretly helped him leave the National Alliance, offering advice and financial support while publicly denouncing him as a traitor.
“He offered to help me. He told me how to keep data on everyone in case they came after me,” the ex-member said. “He’s absolutely an informant. Lawrence is extremely intelligent, probably one of the most intelligent men I have ever met. When I first heard about [F-9], Lawrence was the first person that popped into my head.”
Another former member offered a simpler epitaph.
“I absolutely love that man. He was sane in a sea of nuts. He was kind,” the reformed ex-member told The Post.
“He went back to farming and growing potatoes. That’s all I know.”
Neither Myers nor Beirich could be reached for comment. The SPLC, which also did not respond to a request for comment, has pleaded not guilty and maintains confidential field sources were standard tools for monitoring extremist threats.
The trial is scheduled to begin next month.