HispanicBusiness

Jesse James has now officially been caught twice -- once with his pants down, and again with his hand in the air a la the "Heil, Hitler" salute.

Is it possible that James is, as his close friends assert, not an anti-Semite or white-power enthusiast, but merely a history buff?

To recap, US Magazine today posted a photo taken in 2004 of James -- already in the public doghouse for cheating on wife Sandra Bullock with tattoo model Michelle "Bombshell" McGee among other mistresses -- sporting a Nazi military hat and raising one tattooed hand, eyes wide.

Lest there be any confusion about the historical reference, James uses his other hand to mimic the Hitler mustache.

The 40-year-old motorcycle enthusiast and CEO of West Coast Choppers has yet to explain the photo to the public himself. But close friends insist that he is "far from" a neo-Nazi, pointing out that the photo was taken by a lifelong friend who is Jewish.

A source told US Weekly that he did it for "shock value."

The photo surfaced soon after the discovery of McGee posing for some Nazi-themed photos of her own.

Like James, McGee insists that she's not a white supremacist. Her Web site this week posted an explanation saying she "fell victim to a photographer's stupid idea."

They are not the first high-profile people whose fascination with Nazi memorabilia has been put under the microscope.

In 2003, the FBI launched an investigation into the late Ralph Engelstad, owner of Las Vegas's Imperial Palace, who held private celebrations of Hitler's birthday at the hotel and amassed an extensive collection of Nazi memorabilia, including a fleet of vehicles. Despite these details, the inquiry turned up no "solid evidence" that Engelstad was a Nazi, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.