Lane was briefly a member of the John Birch Society before joining the Ku Klux Klan, becoming the organizer of the Denver unit of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in 1979. In late 1981, Lane became Colorado State Organizer of the Aryan Nations. Lane met Robert Jay Mathews in July 1983 at the Aryan Nations world congress. On September 22, 1983, Lane was among the nine founding members to be sworn into The Order, a white supremacist group whose mission was to deliver "our people from the Jew and bring total victory to the Aryan race." The Order was accused of stealing over $4.1 million in armored car hijackings, killing three people (one of whom was Order member Walter E. West), detonating bombs, counterfeiting money, organizing militaristic training camps and carrying out numerous other crimes with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the "Zionist occupational government" they deemed in control of the United States and to "liberate the Pacific Northwest as a homeland for whites" in the process (see Northwest Territorial Imperative). Convictions and incarceration For his role in The Order's crimes, Lane was sentenced to consecutive sentences totaling 190 years, including 20 years for racketeering, 20 years for conspiracy, both under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), and 150 years for violating the civil rights of Alan Berg, a Jewish radio talk show host who was murdered on June 18, 1984. Berg was shot and killed in the driveway of his Denver home by three members of The Order. Lane was arrested on the evening of March 30, 1985, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. While he did not pull the trigger, prosecutors said Lane drove the getaway car and played a large role in the planning of Berg's assassination. Lane was also among 14 men prosecuted for seditious conspiracy in Fort Smith, Arkansas, but he was acquitted. Lane was considered extremely dangerous by the American justice system and was incarcerated at various times after his conviction in the United States Penitentiary, Marion, the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado, and the Federal Correctional Complex, Terre Haute. While incarcerated, he had the Federal Bureau of Prisons ID # 12873–057. Lane wrote books and articles about gematria and the demographic and sociopolitical status of the white race for white nationalist periodicals and websites. With his wife and Ron McVan, he ran a publishing company called 14