Life is like a box of chocolates. If just one piece is poisoned you get rid of it.

DUNMORE, Pa – Chocolate candy company Gertrude Hawk has not commented any further than a standard message regarding a neo-Nazi who is also a Republican committeeman that currently works in their factory.

“Thank you for contacting us. Your message was received and it has been passed along and will be looked into,”  the statement reads in response a week ago to a Facebook comment regarding their employee Steve Smith, one of the founders of the neo-Nazi crew Keystone United. “At this time, we will not be commenting further on social media. Any additional feedback can be directed to 1-800-822-2032, thank you.”

The statement was prompted by a number of calls and messages the company received regarding Smith, who works as a forklift operator in their Dunmore facility, after Antifa Philadelphia published an article about him as part of a series of articles that spotlight Keystone United, which was founded by Smith and others in 2001 as Keystone State “Skinheads”. The article also notes that in addition to being a former Klansman and onetime associates of Aryan Nations and former Klansman David Duke, Smith is currently serving his second term as a committeeman for the Luzerne County Republican Party. He first won the election in 2012, one year after he founded Smith co-founded the European American Action Coalition (EAAC), an organization “founded in the fall of 2011 by a few well known White activists,” that “advocates on behalf of White Americans,” according to the group’s Facebook account. Smith is also a member of the White supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens.

According to one report, Keystone United has been flagged by the Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium for its “increasingly violent” activities, one of those incidents committed my Smith himself in 2003, when we was arrested and served 30 days in jail for attempting to assault a Black man.

Efforts to persuade Gertrude Hawk, a family business founded in 1936, still continue. In 2008, a news article noted that Keystone United had a PO Box in Dunmore.