[3] In another case, Steele challenged Idaho's hate crime laws by defending Lonny Rae, a man who had been charged with malicious harassment for shouting "nigger" at a black referee who had injured Rae's wife, Kimberly (a reporter for a local newspaper), while he was trying to prevent her from taking a photograph following a high school football match.
[5] Steele also formerly worked as a spokesman for Prussian Blue, a female white supremacist pop music duo that was active in the mid-2000s.
[9] Subsequently, when Steele was already in police custody, a pipebomb was found under his wife's car when she took it in for an oil change, which brought the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms into the case, and Fairfax was arrested.
[12] In July 2010, Steele's supporters put up a website in an attempt to solicit donations and hire a private attorney for him.
In her petition, she asked for numerous damages, including child support payments of $1,400 per month, two of the family's vehicles, and their horse ranch in Sagle, Idaho.
Under questioning, Cyndi stated that her husband had sent 14,000 emails to a large number of Ukrainian women between January and June 2010 as part of his research on a Russian bride scam which was centered in Florida.
The prosecutor argued that this evidence showed that Steele wanted a new partner, and he had a motive to kill his current wife.
The prosecutor introduced several love letters which Steele had written and sent to his supposed Ukrainian girlfriend Tatyana Loginova from his jail cell while he was awaiting trial.
On May 5, 2011, after an extended deliberation, the jury of eleven women and one man found Steele guilty of all four counts, in the indictment, they were described as follows: (1) use of interstate commerce to commission murder for hire, (2) possession of a destructive device in relation to a crime of violence, (3) use of explosive material to commit a federal felony, and (4) tampering with a witness.
[20] In an interview after the trial ended, Steele's wife gave a passionate and critical assessment of the prosecution, judge and case elements.