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A U.S. racist group that has been linked to assassinations and bombings is poised to inherit an estate worth as much as $1-million from a late Canadian coin collector, the Southern Poverty Law Center said Thursday.

Before he died in Saint John, N.B., in 2004, Robert McCorkell bequeathed his assets to the National Alliance, a neo-Nazi group that waged a three-decade campaign of racist violence in the United States, the SLPC said.

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While the National Alliance is now basically defunct, Mr. McCorkell’s estate, which the SLPC said is about to be settled, could help revive what at one point was the dominant force of the American neo-Nazi movement.

This is a movement that very rarely sees hundreds of thousands of dollars. Typically these people have no money at all

“The concern is that the most dangerous neo-Nazi group in America will be very much brought back to life,” said Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Alabama-based civil rights group and a top expert on hate and extremist groups.

The SPLC has hired Ottawa lawyer Pam MacEachern to examine what could be done to stop the Alliance from inheriting Mr. McCorkell’s estate. She found two cases suggesting the bequest might be halted through the courts.