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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Ex-Klansman Sent To Prison For Arson

Compiled From Wire Services

A former Ku Klux Klansman with a fourth-grade education received 15 years in federal prison Monday for conspiring to burn a rural black church and a migrant labor camp.

“I am not a racist,” said Hubert “Herbert” Rowell. “I could have stopped it. I felt bad about it.”

Rowell, 51, who said he once was a member of the KKK, admitted in December that he mixed flammable liquids and gave them to two men who torched the church and camp about 80 miles north of Charleston.

U.S. District Judge David Norton also sentenced Rowell to five years of probation.