NEW CARLISLE, Ohio -- A white nationalist from near Dayton, Ohio, his wife and brother-in-law have all lost their restaurant jobs after a controversial New York Times story featured him as "the Nazi sympathizer next door" last weekend.
Tony Hovater, 29, his wife Maria and her brother all lost their jobs at the 571 Grill and Draft House in New Carlisle, just northeast of Dayton, after "an outpouring of hostility," The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
The original article did not name the restaurant, but dozens of readers "appalled by his views" left "angry, crude and threatening messages" via phone and online for the restaurant's manager, The New York Times reports.
Hovater told The Times they also planned to move from their home in New Carlisle for security reasons.
The original article depicted Hovater as your typical small-town Buckeye who was trying to make white supremacism more mainstream.
The profile drew immediate and fierce criticism online for normalizing a Nazi sympathizer, prompting Marc Lacey, The Times' national editor, to change its headline and issue an explanation of the newspaper's rationale for writing the story.
"We regret the degree to which the piece offended so many readers," Lacey wrote. "We recognize that people can disagree on how best to tell a disagreeable story. What we think is indisputable, though, is the need to shed more light, not less, on the most extreme corners of American life and the people who inhabit them."
