LINDEN, Tenn. (WTVF) — Think of it as a Christmas bird.
While there is no guarantee that Sean Kauffman will be served turkey this Christmas, he may be thinking of a bird of another type as he spends Christmas in the Perry County Jail.
Kauffmann, a Tennessee neo-Nazi with a reputation for violence, was back in court Tuesday, facing accusations that he has repeatedly violated orders to stay away from an ex-girlfriend he is accused of assaulting in March 2024.
Circuit Court Judge William Lane, after wrestling with whether he should keep Kauffmann locked up until his trial, finally decided that he would allow the defendant to be released after he posted a higher bond.
As he was being escorted out of the courtroom in handcuffs, Kauffmann dramatically raised a middle finger toward NewsChannel 5's camera.
Minutes later, the neo-Nazi was standing back before Judge Lane with his attorney.
"I’m not going to have anybody flipping people off in my courtroom. You understand? So I am going to revoke his bond, and he can stay in custody until we get this thing to trial," Lane told Kauffmann's attorney.
Kauffmann politely thanked the judge as he was again being led away.
During the hearing, ex-girlfriend Brittney Gomez described an on-again, off-again relationship where she would allow Kauffmann back into her life with the two children that, according to her, he had fathered. Kauffmann would assault her, then beg for her to take him back. Gomez admitted she had initiated some of the visits with Kauffmann.
"He starts punching my head, ends up breaking my nose. There’s blood everywhere," Gomez testified, describing one of several incidents that she claimed had occurred while he was awaiting trial.
Asked by a prosecutor if he believed that Kauffmann is a dangerous person, Gomez replied: "A hundred percent."
"He has the capacity for great unbridled violence," Gomez continued. "And he knows what he’s doing as evidenced by the last time where he only hit me once and stopped. He knows what he’s doing. He just enjoys it."
As NewsChannel 5 Investigates has reported, Kauffmann was one of the white supremacists who involved themselves in the 2023 mayoral election in Franklin, Tenn.
One of the leaders of the Tennessee Active Club, Kauffmann has been described by the Stop Antisemitism watchdog group as "a disturbed neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier with a documented history of violence and a massive cache of firearms."
The group also noted that he "associates with terrorists, shares bomb-making plans and openly threatens specific terroristic acts."