Texas retailer caters to white supremacists

Police, FBI know of online outfitter but say no laws are being broken

Knight Ridder Newspapers/August 7, 2005
By Jack Douglas Jr.

Fort Worth - In a small industrial park west of Keller, near sprawling neighborhoods and new schools, a storage facility routinely receives shipments of merchandise geared toward a certain clientele — white supremacists and anti-Semites.

An FBI joint task force knows about the place and the people who operate it.

So do the Tarrant County Sheriff's Department and a national watchdog group that monitors hate groups.

Aryan Wear, an online clothing, music and book outlet that opposes Jews and promotes white supremacy, keeps much of its merchandise in the Tarrant County storage stall.

Incorporated by a licensed pilot who lives in far north Fort Worth, Aryan Wear is one of 10 hate and racially intolerant operations in Dallas-Fort Worth, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is based in Montgomery, Ala., and tracks extremist groups.

Though most hate groups' members are open about their views, the operators of Aryan Wear remain for the most part anonymous, letting their online sales pitches spread their message.

"You don't really have my permission to use my name in your article pertaining to this. I think this pretty much seals the deal," said a phone message left at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram by Tony Eynon, named as Aryan Wear's president and lone director in corporate records filed with the Texas secretary of state's office in Austin.

A pilot who was until recently licensed to fly Boeing 737s, Eynon, 30, declined to be interviewed, saying in his phone message that he had recently sold Aryan Wear and that "there's just the finalization of paperwork right now."

He lives with his wife and young child in a well-established neighborhood, down the street from a black family and a Hispanic family, in a home no different from any other on the block until, neighbors say, the garage door rises, revealing a large Confederate flag on the wall.

Joe Roy, chief researcher for the law center's magazine, the Intelligence Report, called Aryan Wear a "hate-for-profit" business, a kind of one-stop shopping for the fashion needs of white supremacists.

The Web site's merchandise includes a T-shirt that declares, "Deport Pedro," another with a picture of Adolf Hitler and the inscription "I was right" and a third with a design similar to a Tide detergent logo but altered to say, "Pride ... For a Whiter, Brighter Future!"

Aryan Wear's signature product, however, is a high-laced boot with swastikas carved in the sole, allowing its wearer to leave an impression of the Nazi symbol on soft ground.

"An outstanding product real skinheads can be proud to be associated with," one wearer said in a review on the Aryan Wear Web site.Roy said the boots were created by Eynon's friend Christopher Evans, who was connected with the violence-prone Confederate Hammerskins in Dallas and now lives in the Fort Worth area.

Evans could not be reached.

Initially, Roy said, the boots were sold to make money for the National Alliance. But the once-powerful neo-Nazi organization is in turmoil, with declining membership, since the death of its longtime leader, William Pierce, in 2002.

Roy said the boots were the alliance's biggest moneymaker until August 2003 when, apparently realizing the financial potential of the footwear, Eynon formed Aryan Wear as a Texas company and began selling the boots exclusively.

Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson said he saw nothing illegal in Aryan Wear's business tactics.