Fred A. Leuchter Jr.

Fred Arthur Leuchter Jr. is an American manufacturer of execution equipment and Holocaust denier who is best known as the author of the Leuchter report, a pseudoscientific document that alleges there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Prior to this, he had been contracted by the authorities of several states in the U.S. to improve the design of instruments for capital punishment. Leuchter was charged in Massachusetts with having misrepresented himself to penitentiaries as an engineer, despite having no relevant qualifications; Leuchter plea bargained with state prosecutors, and received two years probation. He has also been accused of running a "death row shakedown", in which Leuchter threatened to testify for the defense in capital cases if he was not given contracts for his services by that state.