CONCORD, N.H. — The leader of what is reputed to be a New England neo-Nazi group has been hit with a fine and 250 hours of community service for a 2023 incident at a drag queen story hour event in Concord.
New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella announced Thursday that Christopher Hood, formerly of Pepperell, identified in court records at the leader of the National Socialist Club-131, admitted to violating the state’s discrimination laws “by attempting to coerce, intimidate, or compel a place of public accommodation to engage in unlawful discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity.”
Hood must pay a $10,000 civil fine, the maximum allowed in the state, of which $7,500 can be suspended if he complies with the court’s order. He must also complete 250 hours of community service with a state-approved organization.
The civil rights case Formella brought against Hood also applied to the NSC-131 organization as a whole, and under the final decree in the case, all defendants (who were unnamed in communications from the AG’s office, but were said to have also participated in the story time protest) are ordered to cease and desist unlawful discriminatory practices, are prohibited from future unlawful discriminatory practices and unlawful hate and bias-motivated conduct, and are permanently barred from going within 250 of the Teatotaller Cafe where the incident took place.
The case against Hood and the NSC-131 organization stems from their targeting of a drag queen story hour event at the Teatotaller Cafe in June 2023. The civil rights complaint said Hood and 19 others attempted to “terrorize the café into refusing performers access to its venue for no other reason than the sex, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity of those performers,” in an effort to get the event canceled.
The complaint alleged the NSC-131 group surrounded the cafe, obstructed access, shouted homophobic slurs, banged on the windows and displayed anti-LGBTQ+ signs amid other conduct aimed at intimidating patrons.
“This case is about one simple principle: the law applies equally to everyone, and every person is entitled to equal protection under the law,” Formella said in a statement. “No individual or organization has the right to threaten, intimidate, or coerce a New Hampshire business into violating the law or denying lawful access based on protected characteristics. The defendants have admitted their conduct violated New Hampshire’s Law Against Discrimination, accepted significant court-ordered consequences, and are permanently prohibited from future unlawful discriminatory conduct. This resolution delivers accountability and sends the message that organized hate group activity that violates the law will not be tolerated.”
The Merrimack County Superior Court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss the case after finding the state “sufficiently alleged violations of New Hampshire’s Law Against Discrimination,” Formella’s announcement said. The defendants later accepted the final decree in the case after further litigation and discovery.
“This resolution confirms that this Office will not hesitate to enforce New Hampshire’s civil rights laws to the fullest extent possible to protect the public from harm and to hold those who violate the civil rights of others accountable,” Senior Assistant Attorney General and Civil Rights Unit Director Sean Locke said in a statement. “Through admission of statutory violations, meaningful remedies, and permanent protections to prevent future unlawful conduct, the Final Decree recognizes the significant violation of civil rights that occurred and hold Hood, NSC-131, and the other defendant accountable for their actions.”
Hood has found himself in court for his and NSC-131’s activities on multiple occasions in recent years. In 2022 Hood faced a charge in relation to a clash between his group and counter-protesters at a drag queen story hour in the Jamaica Plain part of Boston. Hood and his white-supremacist group also faced a different civil rights case stemming from an incident in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where the group allegedly trespassed onto a bridge to hold a banner reading “Keep New England White.”
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