has observed that Neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups have campaigned alongside them. The ADL reported an official connection between these groups has been established. In December 2005 James Chase turned over leadership of the California Minutemen (CMM) & the national Border Watch Federation (BWF) to his son, Mike Chase. Recruits, operations and the influence of the California Minutemen continued to grow, and the North County Times complained of Mike Chase's appointment to the political steering committee of California Senator Bill Morrow's campaign for the 50th District Congressional seat vacated by Randy "Duke" Cunningham. In a June 2008 interview with the OC Register, Jim Gilchrist stated, "Am I happy at the outcome of this whole movement? I am very, very sad, very disappointed". He also added, "There's all kinds of organizations that have spawned from the Minuteman Project and I have to say, some of the people who have gotten into this movement have sinister intentions. ...I have found, after four years in this movement...I very well may have been fighting for people with less character and less integrity than the 'open border fanatics' I have been fighting against", Gilchrist concluded. "And that is a phenomenal indictment of something I have created." Internal strife Members of an advisory board for the Minuteman Project, Inc. took control of the organization's bank account and, at least temporarily, took control of the Minuteman Project's main web site, Jim Gilchrist filed a lawsuit in Orange County, California, against three of the members of the group that claimed to be members of a board of directors: Marvin Stewart, Deborah Courtney and Barbara Coe. Stewart, Courtney and Coe alleged that they constituted the board of directors of Minuteman Project, Inc. and fired Gilchrist for a variety of reasons. Gilchrist fired Stewart and Courtney. Rather than accept their termination, Stewart and Courtney filed papers with the Secretary of State of Delaware saying that they were the board of directors and Officers of the Corporation. Stewart and Courtney are defendants in another action which was brought against them by the Minuteman Project. At one point, the former volunteers could not afford to pay for legal counsel because they ran out of money and as a result, they were forced to represent themselves in court. That trial began on January 4, 2010. On February 5, 2010, Judge Wilkinson issued a Statement of Decision which found that Stewart and Courtney were