Each day, we’ll have the latest news from the courtroom in the Sines v. Kessler Unite the Right trial. For coverage from previous days, check the list of links at the bottom of this page.
The second week of the Sines v. Kessler trial opened with a spectacle that will be repeated in coming days: a victim of Unite the Right sharing heart-wrenching testimony, then facing cross examination from two of the white nationalists accused in the lawsuit of conspiring to commit racially motivated violence that weekend in August 2017.
“It was mostly a blur,” UVA graduate Devin Willis testified on Monday, remembering the days following Unite the Right. “I threw myself into overdrive, wasn’t sleeping, busy, trying to find something to do to make sense out of what happened that weekend. It’s such a blur. I entered a bad place.”
Willis is one of nine plaintiffs in the case, and is the second of 31 expected witnesses for the plaintiffs’ side. Now 23 and living in Mexico City, Willis was one of a small group of UVA students surrounded by torch-bearing white nationalists at the Thomas Jefferson statue in front of UVA’s Rotunda on August 11, 2017. The next day, he counterprotested in downtown Charlottesville and arrived at the scene of the car attack on Fourth and Water streets soon after his friend and fellow plaintiff Natalie Romero had been taken to the hospital.
Willis, who had finished his first year at UVA in the summer of 2017, previously testified that he’d been an enthusiastic overachiever when he arrived at college. Raised by a single mother who’d relocated from Detroit to the D.C. area to provide her son better educational opportunities, Willis, who is Black, had thrived academically and socially. He graduated in the top 5 percent of his high school class, was active in student government, and was elected homecoming king. At UVA, that pattern continued as he threw himself into academics and joined multiple organizations including the Black Student Alliance.
In the immediate weeks after Unite the Right, Willis said he became manic, searching for meaning in the violence he’d experienced and witnessed. That burst of energy didn’t last. His grades plummeted, he said, and he withdrew from groups and commitments.
“Interpersonally, I stopped being an outgoing, sociable person. I became very suspicious of people, withdrawn. Not present. Constantly distracted, getting flashbacks. I felt I couldn’t relate to anyone around me anymore. It was such a lonely time.”
The plaintiffs’ first witness, Willis’ friend and fellow plaintiff Natalie Romero, was critically injured in the August 12 car attack. During her cross examination on Friday, the defense was relatively gentle, offering their condolences and primarily asking her if she remembered seeing any of the defendants at the Friday night torch rally or the following day.
Willis, who described being knocked down while counterprotesting on that Saturday but was not struck by James Fields’ car, faced more aggressive questioning under cross examination. He spent about three hours being grilled by Richard Spencer and Christopher Cantwell, the two white nationalist defendants who are representing themselves in court.
“How and why did you choose to go to the base of the Jefferson statue?” Spencer asked Willis of his group’s decision to leave a spaghetti dinner at a professor’s house on that Friday night. “Did they have direct knowledge of a logistical map of the torchlight rally?”
“I think you guys are well known for liking statues,” Willis replied.
During his testimony, Willis expressed his fear from the Friday night rally that his picture might be taken and that his personal information might be spread online, in an attempt to intimidate him. The tactic is called doxxing.
Spencer noted that Willis spoke with his face uncovered at a counterprotest in McGuffey Park on Saturday, where attendees were posting pictures and videos online.
“You weren’t really that afraid of doxxing,” Spencer pressed.
“In both instances, I didn’t have any control over who’s recording,” said Willis. “In one instance, it made more sense to be afraid.”
Spencer interrogated Willis about certain counterprotesting chants Willis had participated in on Saturday, including, “The people united will never be divided.”
“Is there a political component to that,” Spencer asked. “Will never be divided? What if someone wants to be divided?”
“People are better versions of themselves and they are stronger when they are in community,” Willis said calmly.
Cantwell, popularly known as “the crying Nazi,” followed Spencer in cross examining Willis. He focused on Willis’ claim that it may have been Cantwell himself who pepper sprayed him that evening.
“Before today, did you tell anyone that you choked on Christopher Cantwell’s pepper spray? They didn’t ask you about that,” Cantwell said in a sarcastic tone. “In June 2020, if somebody said, do you know who Christopher Cantwell is, you’d have said no?”
“I don’t know when I became aware of you,” Willis said.
“When were you approached about this lawsuit?” Cantwell countered.
“I became a plaintiff in October 2017. I hardly remember the time period,” said Willis.
“I can’t help but notice that you say, ‘I can’t remember’ a lot. Is everything okay?” Cantwell asked with faux concern.
“No, everything is not okay,” said Willis.
Attorneys for the other white nationalist defendants used cross examination to suggest Willis wasn’t only counterprotesting with other UVA students.
“Do you see that red flag in the background with a sickle,” asked Bryan Jones, attorney for defendants Michael Tubbs, Michael Hill, and League of the South, showing Willis a portion of cell phone video that Willis shot on Saturday.
“I can’t tell if that’s a sickle,” said Willis.
“You didn’t realize that there were communist supporters among the counterprotesters?
“I wasn’t really paying attention at the time,” Willis replied.
“See this person with a red bandana,” Jones said, pointing to another counterprotester visible in Willis’ video. “You didn’t recognize that as a symbol of antifa?”
“No, I didn’t,” said Willis.
Willis’ cross examination ended by mid-afternoon on Monday, and plaintiffs’ next evidence was a videotaped deposition of 30-year-old Samantha Froelich, a former member of the white nationalist group and Sines v. Kessler defendant Identity Evropa.
In the video, Froelich, who has long red hair and was dressed in black, said she joined the group to please an ex-boyfriend. She has since denounced the hateful ideology and recalled Identity Evropa founder and lawsuit defendant Eli Mosley’s discussions of “right wing death squads,” which Mosley said would be coming to Charlottesville for Unite the Right.
Froelich said Mosley, whose real name is Elliott Kline, considered Black people to be “subhuman,” and often talked about finishing Hitler’s “final solution” by exterminating the Jews.
“He would talk about it with glee,” Froelich said. “He was very excited at the prospect of killing Jewish people. She said Mosley also used the phrase “RaHoWa,” an acronym for racial holy war. Froelich explained it means “a physical violent confrontation between white people and every other race.”
Froelich’s videotaped testimony will continue on Tuesday.
Previous Sines v. Kessler coverage
Pre-trial: Their day in court: Major lawsuit against Unite the Right neo-Nazis heads to trial
Day one, 10/25: Trial kicks off with jury selection
Day two, 10/26: Desperately seeking jury
Day three, 10/27: Jury selection wraps up
Day four, 10/28: Plaintiffs and defendants make their opening arguments
Day five, 10/29: “I hear it in my nightmares,” says plaintiff Romero