Eleven residents injured during the August 12 weekend, represented by legal powerhouse firms, filed a suit in federal court October 11 seeking monetary compensation from organizers of the Unite the Right rally, including Jason Kessler, Richard Spencer and more than three dozen white supremacist and neo-Nazi individuals and groups, alleging they conspired to commit violence in Charlottesville.
Tyler Magill, who had a stroke a few days after being whacked by a tiki torch during the August 11 march through UVA’s grounds, Marcus Martin, who was struck by defendant James Fields’ car, which broke his leg and ankle, his fiancée, Marissa Blair, and the Reverend Seth Wispelwey are among the plaintiffs suffering physical and emotional trauma, according to the suit.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs include Roberta Kaplan, who represented Edie Windsor in the landmark Supreme Court case on gay marriage, and former federal prosecutor Karen Dunn with Boies Schiller. In a 96-page complaint, the plaintiffs allege an unlawful conspiracy to intimidate, harass and injure blacks, Jews, people of color and their supporters.
The suit cites Andrew Anglin, publisher of the Daily Stormer, who wrote of an “atavistic rage in us, deep in us, that is ready to boil over. There is a craving to return to an age of violence. We want a war.”
Organizer and new Identity Evropa CEO Eli Mosley promised,”They will not replace us without a fight,” according to the suit.
Says Kaplan, “The whole point of this lawsuit is to make it clear that this kind of conduct—inciting and then engaging in violence based on racism, sexism and anti-Semitism—has no place in our country.”