White Supremacist With Roots on Portland Streets Faces Charges in Charlottesville Assaults

Dennis Lloyd Mothersbaugh had been arrested for at least two racially-charged crimes before he showed up in Charlottesville, Virginia.

(Multnomah County Sheriff's Office)
By Katie Shepherd

A longtime white supremacist with Portland roots, Dennis Lloyd Mothersbaugh, was extradited to Charlottesville, Va., on Oct. 6 to face charges of assaulting two people at an August "Unite the Right" rally.

Mothersbaugh, 37, was already a notorious skinhead more than 10 years ago. He hung out with a group of teenagers living on Portland's streets in the early 2000s. (His early crimes are recounted in Rene Denfeld's 2007 book on street families, All God's Children.)

In 2005, his white supremacist gang threatened a black man with a machete at a convenience store in Gresham while flashing white-power salutes.

He was in and out of the Oregon criminal justice system for a decade—his last charge in Multnomah County was a traffic violation in 2008. He also incurred 11 felony charges and more than a dozen misdemeanor charges in the Portland area.

He had most recently been living in North Vernon, Ind., where he was arrested Sept. 28 after a cellphone video surfaced that shows Mothersbaugh punching a man and a woman who protested against racism in Charlottesville.

As he was escorted by law enforcement from an Indiana jail, Mothersbaugh sported a "God, Guns & Trump" T-shirt.

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