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.
At the start of week four of Sines v. Kessler, the lawsuit that claims leaders of the 2017 Unite the Right rally conspired to commit violence, organizer Jason Kessler took the stand Monday, and it was clear he had a few scores to settle with co-defendant Richard Spencer and other former UTR pals.
Kessler, who grew up in Fluvanna and graduated from UVA in 2009, posted on Twitter in 2019, “Richard Spencer is a narcissist and sociopath. He turns on everyone he comes into contact with. I have related stories about the ‘real’ Richard Spencer that I knew in my few interactions with him. THIS is that man.” The tweet included audio from a now-infamous racist rant Spencer made the evening of August 12.
Spencer, who is representing himself in the civil trial and had earlier testified about his dislike of Kessler, asked Kessler when he determined Spencer was a “sociopath and narcissist.”
“The first time I met you,” said Kessler. “You made my skin crawl. You were like a robot or serial killer… You and Eli Mosley were calling me a Jew because I wouldn’t sieg heil with you.”
“This is enough, Jason,” said Spencer.
In a Facebook conversation introduced as evidence, Kessler said the best way to draw antifa to the Double Horseshoe Saloon was to say Richard Spencer was there.
“So many people hate you that it draws a lot of attention,” Kessler explained to Spencer.
“Is this kind of your M.O., to use people like me to get people riled up?” asked Spencer.
“A little bit of controversy goes a long way,” said Kessler.
Under questioning from plaintiffs attorney Karen Dunn, Kessler said he didn’t believe Jewish people were white, and that there were differences in IQ between the races.
Dunn introduced multiple exhibits in which Kessler promoted Unite the Right as a violent event.
“I think we need to have a Battle of Berkeley event in Charlottesville,” he posted on Discord server, referring to a violent California protest earlier in 2017.
“I would go to the ends of the earth to secure a future for my people,” he said in a May 20, 2017, Discord post. “This is war.”
And this text to Spencer: “We’re raising an army my liege. For free speech and the cracking of skulls if it comes to it.”
Dunn also entered as evidence communications Kessler had with the other defendants, including Spencer, Matt Heimbach and Matthew Parrott with Traditionalist Worker Party, League of the South, Nathan Damigo with Identity Evropa, and Elliott Kline, aka Eli Mosley.
Kline testified in a deposition that there were weekly planning calls with Kessler, Spencer, and Damigo. Kessler disagreed with Kline’s testimony, and said, “No, he’s a liar. He’s a known liar.”
Kessler took aim at other co-defendants. He called Robert “Azzmador” Ray, who currently is on the lam for blowing off document production and court orders, a “scumbag” and “a very bad person” that he didn’t want at the event, although video from August 12 showed Kessler and Ray acting very buddy-buddy.
He also said he isn’t a fan of Jeff Schoep, then head of the National Socialist Movement. “I was embarrassed by NSM once I learned it was a Nazi organization,” Kessler said. “I tried to separate myself from him.” Schoep testified earlier Monday that he’d had a change of heart about the neo-Nazi movement, but called the lawsuit “frivolous” when he left NSM in 2019.
Kessler testified that Schoep and Cantwell had nothing to do with planning Unite the Right.
In multiple Discord posts, Kessler tried to discourage attendees from openly carrying firearms, not for fear of gunfire, but because “I don’t want to scare antifa off from throwing the first punch.”
Kessler said the idea for the August 11 tiki-torch march through UVA was his, but denied he led the march. “Elliott Kline and Richard Spencer did,” he said, adding that they had ousted him from leadership of the rally, and that Azzmador and Kline had “staged a mutiny against me.”
Police weren’t notified about the torch march until that evening, when Kline told University Police the march would go from Nameless Field,up University Avenue to the Thomas Jefferson statue in front of the Rotunda. The march wended its way through UVA Grounds instead, because Kline wasn’t from Charlottesville and didn’t know where he was going, according to Kessler.
While marching through Grounds, Kessler denied he chanted “Jews will not replace us.”
“I never would have said that,” he testified. “I don’t agree with those people focused on Jews. I was focused on white civil rights.”
That night after the march, Kline and Kessler praised each other’s work in text messages, with Kessler saying, “Let’s knock this out of the park tomorrow.”
Earlier this year, Kessler tweeted an image of torches surrounding the Jefferson statue, where counterprotesters were pepper sprayed and beaten, and said, “Iconic moment alert.” On the stand he insisted, “I don’t think I bear any responsibility for what happened August 11.”
After James Fields plowed into a crowd of counterprotesters August 12, Kessler sent a text to Cantwell inviting him to a meeting that would be limited to “leaders and essential people only” to get their story out.
“I remember we were very panicked and shocked by it,” said Kessler.
He messaged Kline three times that they needed to shut down the Discord server, where many attendees made plans to go to the rally.
“People were saying highly inappropriate things,” said Kessler. “Specifically, people were mocking Heather Heyer. That was my concern. I didn’t want Discord to be a platform for these trolls.”
However, that wasn’t what he said in 2017, when he tweeted on August 18 that Heyer “was a fat disgusting communist,” and on August 24, “I 100 percent believe Heather Heyer was to blame for participating in an armed mob blocking traffic during a state of emergency.”
Crying Nazi Cantwell, a self-proclaimed shock jock and pro se defendant who has questioned witnesses throughout the trial, found himself on the stand Monday afternoon.
In a few clips from Cantwell’s Radical Agenda podcast, jurors got to hear even more profanity-laden racist rhetoric than what Cantwell has already spewed in court. He said he’s advocated violence, and that he does the show to make people angry.
In June 2017, he told listeners, “I want you prepared to hurt people.”
When protesters blocked pipeline construction in Standing Rock, Cantwell said in a February 2017 show, “Well I will fuck you up if you block my path. I will fucking run through you.”
In a Vice documentary about the Unite the Right rally, Cantwell showed off the arsenal he brought to Charlottesville. After the car deadly attack, “which was more than justified,” he said, “We’re not nonviolent. We’ll fucking kill these people if we have to.”
Under questioning by plaintiffs’ attorney Michael Bloch, whom Cantwell called Mike, he admitted he has considered a shooting spree, and said he’s aware that what he says influences people. In a post, Cantwell said that some of his listeners would engage in a mass shooting if he told them to.
On the stand he berated Bloch for “pestering” him about a post with an image of Fields’ Challenger going through the crowd on Fourth Street titled, “This is what democracy looks like.” Cantwell said he didn’t remember every social media post he’d made, and didn’t remember this one.
Jurors also learned that Cantwell gave a Nazi salute to James Fields when they were both held in the same jail. Cantwell said he later gave Fields a hug and said, “I’m really sorry this happened to you.”
Spencer asked his fellow defendant if good taste was one of his strong suits. Said Cantwell, “The whole point is to obtain free media attention by offending people.”
With Cantwell, the plaintiffs have called their last witness. On Tuesday, the defense will begin to present its case.
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
Day six, 11/1: “I stopped being an outgoing, sociable person,” says plaintiff Willis
Day seven, 11/2: “Strike that”
Day eight, 11/3: Defendants fawn over Hitler
Day nine, 11/4: Quibbling about hate
Day 10, 11/5: League of the South takes the stand
Day 11, 11/8: “It gave me Nazi vibes”
Day 12, 11/9: False flags and missing evidence
Day 13, 11/10: “It was awful”
Day 14, 11/11: White supremacy 101
Day 15, 11/12: Sines speaks, defendant dances