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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. Read more.
