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 third week of Sines v. Kessler concluded with dramatic testimony from the woman named in the title of the suit—and one defendant being instructed to stop dancing during a cross-examination. Attorneys for the plaintiffs also brought to the stand two expert witnesses who presented eye-popping estimates of what it will take, and how much it will cost, for each of the plaintiffs to lead productive lives after the injuries they suffered on August 11 and 12.
Elizabeth Sines was a UVA law student in the summer of 2017. She opened her testimony by explaining her involvement in the suit that accuses more than two dozen white nationalist defendants of conspiring to commit racially motivated violence at the Unite the Right rally.
“I’m here because I would like those who have harmed me to be held accountable,” Sines said.
Sines testified she’d been working at a homeless persons representation project in Baltimore that summer, but had briefly returned to Charlottesville in July to counterprotest at the KKK rally in Court Square Park. She described that experience as “shocking.”
“I think that made it all the more important for me to go on August 11 and August 12,” she said, noting that she hadn’t witnessed any violence between the Klan and counterprotesters. “I attribute that to how large the counterprotest [crowd was],” Sines said. “I thought that large counterprotests were an important part of safety.”
She had returned to Charlottesville the second week in August to prepare for an on-campus meeting, when she learned from Twitter on the evening of August 11 that white nationalists were heading to Grounds.
“I asked my friend if she wanted to go to the counterprotest with me, and we went to the Lawn to bear witness,” Sines said. Soon after the pair arrived, they heard a roaring noise in the distance.
“You heard it before you saw it,” she recalled of the moments before the torch-bearing mob arrived, chanting “You will not replace us” and “Jews will not replace us.” She began a Facebook livestream video with her cell phone as the white nationalists passed just feet away.
“In that moment, I think I didn’t know what else to do, so I decided to report on the events,” Sines said. “I thought of [being] like a reporter in a war zone or covering a hurricane, and so I narrated it into my phone.”
Sines and her friend, an Asian American, followed the crowd around the Rotunda and saw the men create a flame-lit circle around the small group of counterprotesters at the Thomas Jefferson statue.
Their shock at what they witnessed is memorialized in a video plaintiffs presented to the jury.
“Holy shit…. Whoa, whoa, whoa…. What do we do?” Sines and her friend can be heard exclaiming. She testified that the white nationalists attacked the counterprotesters without visible provocation.
“They were throwing liquids on them. They threw their torches at them, used their torches to hit them,” said Sines. “One by one, it was like watching cancer cells attacking a healthy cell.”
She also said one of the defendants stood out to her that night, and she pointed to Richard Spencer in the courtroom.
“He came out of this chaos, walked up the stairs and stood on the same viewing platform as us. He began to give a speech,” Sines said. “He said, ‘We have claimed a historic victory,’ like, ‘these are our streets’ or something like that,” she said.
The next morning, Sines and the same friend decided to counterprotest at the Unite the Right rally. They arrived downtown around noon and saw men in white polos and khakis and people open-carrying guns of all sizes.
Sines joined the large, joyful crowd of counterprotesters walking down Water Street toward Fourth Street, and she livestreamed the event as she’d done the night before. She sobbed on the stand as she recalled the moment James Fields plowed his Dodge Challenger into the crowd.
“It’s something I’ll never forget,” said Sines. “It sounded like if you would take a metal baseball bat and slide it across a wooden fence. Thuds. You heard people screaming.”
Plaintiffs’ attorneys showed the jury an enlarged photo of the rear end of Fields’ car in the middle of the crowd he’d just struck. On the evidence display, Sines circled her own face, visible right in front of the vehicle. Somehow, she testified, she avoided being hit and fled into a nearby alley with other counterprotesters.
“I thought it was an accident. But when he started to reverse and run over the people, I knew he was trying to kill as many people as possible,” she said. “It was just panic. People trying to get out. You heard someone scream ‘Go to the alleys,’ so we ran.”
She kept her livestream going throughout the attack, and turned the camera on her own face as she entered the alley.
“A car ran through,” a sobbing Sines says in the video shown to jurors.
In the weeks that followed the attack, Sines testified that she began to suffer from aftereffects that still plague her.
“I have been diagnosed with PTSD and major depressive disorder related to PTSD,” Sines said. “I have flashbacks, nightmares, and generalized anxiety about those events.”
During cross-examination, former radio host Christopher Cantwell displayed some of the dramatic flair that has also earned him the “Crying Nazi” nickname. He focused on members of the counterprotesting crowd who appeared to be carrying flag poles and wearing goggles and helmets. As he played video of the counterprotesters marching, he began swaying to the rhythm of their chants. This prompted a sharp objection from the plaintiffs.
“Your honor, can I ask Mr. Cantwell to stop dancing to the video,” a plaintiffs’ attorney objected.
“How about if I stand perfectly still?” Cantwell responded.
“Yeah that would be nice,” said presiding Judge Norman K. Moon, whose exasperation with both the plaintiffs and defense has been on display frequently in recent days.
Before Sines took the stand on Friday, two expert witnesses also testified. Sharon Reavis, a rehabilitation and damages expert, said some of the plaintiffs can expect lifetime expenses from their injuries to top $500,000. Among the expenses are a life coach for Chelsea Alvarado for the next 60 years at more than $2,000 a year and $50,000 for a lifetime membership at ACAC gym for plaintiff Thomas Baker, who suffered severe hip injury in the car attack.
Dr. Nadia Webb, an expert in neuro- and medical psychology, said she’d reviewed the medical records of all plaintiffs to help determine their likely needs, but admitted on cross-examination she had not examined any of them in person.
The final witness on Friday was former National Socialist Movement leader Jeff Schoep, who has left the organization and publicly denounced white supremacy since Unite the Right. Plaintiffs’ attorneys used their direct examination of Schoep to show connections between groups and his role in the Nationalist Front, a loose alliance formed between various white nationalist factions ahead of Unite the Right.
The trial is scheduled to end on Friday, November 19, but that date is in question since the defense has estimated it needs three full days to present evidence, and closing arguments may be lengthy given the complexity of the case and the number of defendants. Schoep’s cross examination will continue on Monday morning.
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