Tag: Nina Antony

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Guilty again: Ramos second person convicted in garage assault

Alex Michael Ramos, with arm raised, was convicted of the malicious wounding of DeAndre Harris.

 

 

In the second trial of the week for the brutal August 12 attack on DeAndre Harris, a jury deliberated 35 minutes before entering a second guilty verdict May 3 for an out-of-towner here for the Unite the Right rally.

Georgia resident Alex Michael Ramos, 34, sat expressionless through most of the two-day trial for his charge of malicious wounding. And in the sparsely filled courtroom, he did not appear to have family members or supporters present, although at closing arguments, Hannah Zarski, the woman whose offer to house Ramos a judge rebuffed during a bond hearing, showed up, and Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler sat in a back corner for most of the trial.

Even for those who have seen videos before of the beatdown in the Market Street Parking Garage, it was hard to watch, and a couple of the jurors glared at Ramos after they were shown footage of him, clad in a red Make America Great Again baseball cap and white wifebeater, run into the garage and throw a punch at Harris, who already was on the ground and being beaten by four other men.

For Harris, 20, his testimony May 2 made the third day in a row he took the stand. He previously testified April 30 and May 1 in the malicious wounding trial of Jacob Goodwin, 23, who came from Ward, Arkansas, to take part in the rally. A jury found Goodwin guilty, and two other men charged in the attack—Daniel Borden and Tyler “Boonie Hat” Davis—have trials this summer.

Harris, a teacher’s aide who worked last summer as a YMCA camp counselor, described going to the Unite the Right rally with his brother and several others that he didn’t really know, including Corey Long.

A girl dressed in black gave him a mask, and a man gave him a Maglite, he said.

After the rally in Emancipation Park was declared an unlawful assembly and the white supremacists and neo-Nazis were funneled on to Market Street where counterprotesters were massed, Harris and his party walked east on Market trading barbs with the ralliers.

Harris said he was in front of his group when he turned and saw what appeared to him to be “an alt-right guy driving his flag into Corey.”

What Harris didn’t see, said Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nina Antony, was Long run up to League of the South member Harry Crews and attempt to grab his flag.

“I ran up with the flashlight,” said Harris. “I hit the pole to break up the altercation.” Harris was found not guilty of assault March 16.

He was immediately sprayed with a chemical substance, ran and fell down, he said. “I get up and try to run and I fall again,” he said as jurors watched a video of the incident. “I was just trying to get away.”

Nurse practitioner Evan Pryse treated Harris at Sentara Martha Jefferson after he’d taken a shower for chemical decontamination. Harris had eight staples for the gash in his scalp and had difficulty forming sentences, said Pryse, which he thought could be the result of a concussion.

Harris also suffered a fractured left forearm, which Pryse said is in the medical world is known as a “nightstick injury,” and typically occurs when one raises an arm to block a blow.

Detective Declan Hickey was gathering intelligence from news and social media on the third floor of the Charlottesville Police Department August 12 and saw from a surveillance camera the attack on Harris. A former combat paramedic, Hickey found Harris “covered in blood” and looking confused.

Hickey testified that he started investigating the attack and identified Ramos from social media and working with local law enforcement in Georgia.

“We stomped some ass,” Ramos posted on Facebook. “Getting some was fucking fun.”

Ramos was arrested August 28. During cross examination from Ramos’ attorney, Jake Joyce, Hickey said Ramos seemed remorseful when the detective interviewed him.

Joyce did not call any witnesses, and Judge Rick Moore denied Joyce’s motion to strike the malicious wounding charge. Joyce argued that one punch is not sufficient to establish malice, but Moore said four people were beating Harris on the ground when Ramos joined in. “It really is malice to hit someone on the ground,” said the judge.

“Out in the fresh air and sunshine, he could just have walked away,” said Moore.

In his closing argument, Joyce tried to convince the jury Ramos, who goes by Michael, was not guilty of malicious wounding. “Michael threw one punch. He had no weapon. That is a classic assault and battery.”

But ultimately the jury believed Antony’s story of “a man who joined a violent attack on a defenseless, unarmed man.” She reminded the jurors, “We saw him sprinting toward the garage, so eager to get in, he catapults himself into the fray.”

The jury took a bit longer to come up with a sentence for Ramos than it did in finding him guilty, and returned with a recommendation of six years in prison. Ramos will be sentenced August 23.

At one point during closing arguments, Harris left as Antony was describing the attack and Ramos “winding up” his arm and hitting Harris at the same time white-helmeted Borden slams him with a two-by-four.

Afterward, Commonwealth’s Attorney Joe Platania noted the “emotional toll” the trials and testimony are taking on Harris, but added, “He’s a resilient young man.”

 

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Malicious wounding charge against ‘Boonie Hat’ goes to grand jury

Tyler Watkins Davis. Courtesy Charlottesville Police Department

A Florida man charged with malicious wounding in the August 12 Market Street Parking Garage attack on DeAndre Harris can thank the attorney of another man for his arrest—and for dubbing him “Boonie Hat.”

Tyler Watkins Davis, 50, of Middleburg, Florida, was in Charlottesville General District Court April 12 for a preliminary hearing, and his attorney argued Davis had been “overcharged” and that the single blow he struck against Harris did not rise to the level of malicious wounding. However, Judge Bob Downer found enough evidence to certify the felony charge to the grand jury.

The moniker “Boonie Hat” debuted in that same court December 14, when Blairs attorney Elmer Woodard, who represents Jacob Goodwin, who’s also charged in the garage brawl, played video of the assault and asked why police had not arrested the then-unknown man wearing a brimmed hat who could be seen striking Harris.

Charlottesville police Detective Declan Hickey testified that he hadn’t noticed Boonie Hat until Woodard pointed him out in December, and he started looking for him. Davis was arrested January 24.

Davis, a member of the neo-Confederate group League of the South, came to Charlottesville to the Unite the Right rally to exercise his political opinions, said his attorney, Matthew Engle. “Opinions I find offensive,” added the attorney. “He had a right to do that.”

Engle portrayed Harris and Corey Long, known from video footage with his homemade flame thrower that he deployed at Emancipation Park, as much more violent and provocative than his client. He said that while Davis was peacefully protesting, Harris burned a Confederate flag earlier that day.

Engle played a video in which he said “two incredibly stupid things happened”: Long attempted to grab a flag belonging to Harold Crews, the head of the North Carolina League of the South, and Harris inserted himself into that. According to Engle, Harris pretty much provoked the vicious attack that left him with a broken wrist and stapled-together scalp. Harris was found not guilty of assaulting Crews March 16.

The attorney also said that “it was irresponsible” to send Unite the Right protesters out of the park and into the street with counterprotesters. Davis walked up Market Street as the two groups sparred. Once in the parking garage, when Harris stumbled in front of him and Davis hit him with what was variously described as a stick or club, “it was not self-defense” but it did lack malice, said Engle, who pointed that Davis only hit Harris once, unlike others involved in the attack.

“He was responding to a threat that he perceived,” said Engle.

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nina Antony disagreed. “Mr. Davis struck an individual who was unarmed and on the ground,” she said. “That in and of itself is malice.”

Before his ruling, Downer noted, “This court has viewed so many videos from so many angles,” and some shown April 12 had not been shown in other preliminary hearings. There was “horrible behavior” on the part of many people, he observed.

He said he didn’t think Davis was justified in striking Harris. “I think it was malicious,” and he said he found probable cause to certify the charge to the grand jury.

Downer allowed a bond hearing for Davis. Attorney Bernadette Donovan said her client was 50 years old with “absolutely no record.” Davis was raised in Lynchburg, where he met the woman to whom he’s been married 25 years, she said. Davis was a service technician for Comcast, had passed a background check for his job that had him going into people’s homes, and he was the family’s main breadwinner.

Holly Davis testified that her husband was funny and honest.

Over the prosecution’s objection, Downer agreed to a $5,000 bond on the condition that the commonwealth’s attorney could vet a home electronic monitoring system first. If approved, Davis could only leave his house for work, medical appointments for himself or his son, court or to meet with his attorneys.

“We requested he sign a waiver of extradition,” says Commonwealth’s Attorney Joe Platania.

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Goodwin motions denied in DeAndre Harris attacks

Jacob Goodwin, one of four men charged in the beating of DeAndre Harris August 12, was found guilty of malicious wounding. Charlottesville police

An Arkansas man whose own attorney admits he kicked DeAndre Harris in the Market Street Garage August 12 filed two motions to exclude evidence of the brutal beating because he claimed the serious injuries to Harris happened before the kicks.

Jacob Goodwin, 23, of Ward, Arkansas, was arrested in November and charged with malicious wounding, a felony that carries up to 20 years in prison and a minimum five-year sentence.

His attorney from Blairs, Elmer Woodard, spent most of the March 7 hearing showing video to Judge Rick Moore to establish that assailants such as Tyler Davis, the 49-year-old Florida man arrested January 24, and others identified as “Salmon Shirt” and “White Helmet” were the ones who seriously injured Harris, and that Harris’ broken wrist and head gash that required staples happened before Goodwin came on the scene to deliver a few kicks to his stomach and legs.

Harris “attacked Mr. Goodwin and Mr. Goodwin defended himself,” said Woodard. He contended that a list of Harris’ injuries was “unbiased testimony from medical specialists,” and did not include any bruises on his stomach. “That’s not malicious wounding,” he said. “This shouldn’t come into evidence against him because it happened before he came in.”

Moore denied Woodard’s motion to exclude that evidence and said it would be up to a jury to determine whether Goodwin caused Harris’ injuries. “This is a melee. He’s clearly kicked by your client multiple times,”  said Moore. “I can’t find this evidence irrelevant.”

Prosecutor Nina Antony said the commonwealth is proceeding on a theory that the assault was “concert of action by a mob” that Goodwin was part of, even if Harris’ injuries were caused by others.

“You can’t say it’s concert of action” when it’s people defending themselves,” argued Woodard.

Moore denied Woodard’s motions “based on the videos I’ve seen,” he said. Goodwin is scheduled for a jury trial April 30.

Woodard is also defending other white supremacists arrested in August 12 weekend events, including Baltimore Confederate White Knights of the KKK imperial wizard Richard Preston, charged with firing a gun after an unlawful assembly was declared in Emancipation Park, and “Crying Nazi” Chris Cantwell.

Woodard also represents Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler in his March 6 civil suit against the city for denying his August 12 anniversary permit.

 

 

 

 

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Charges dropped for mask-wearing protesters at KKK rally

Many protesters at the July KKK rally covered their faces after police used tear gas. photo Eze Amos

Three people charged with wearing a mask at the July 8 KKK rally in Justice Park were in Charlottesville General District Court today, where the prosecution dismissed their felony charges because tear gas used by police could have been a factor in why they covered their faces.

Diego Trujillo, from Charlottesville, Sarah Barner from Waynesboro and Naomi Bendersky from Montgomery Village, Maryland, each were charged with the Class 6 felony that can carry up to five years in jail.

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nina Antony told the judge Virginia code prohibits masks worn with the intent to conceal the identity of the wearer. She said police officers saw the three walking toward them. “Fearing an escalation, they arrested these individuals,” she said, adding that the officers had “ample probable cause.”

After the 40 or so Klan members left the July rally, police declared an unlawful assembly, ordered everyone to leave and then fired tear gas into the crowd of those still on High Street, which was closed.

“The use of tear gas beforehand” could have been a reason they covered their faces, acknowledged Antony. “The commonwealth does not have proof beyond a reasonable doubt these individuals were trying to conceal their identities.”

Judge Bob Downer, who has had all the KKK and the August 12 Unite the Right arrests go through his court, commended the prosecution for dropping the charges. “I think it’s well-founded and appropriate” to use discretion in such cases.

The defendants declined to comment after the hearing.

Attorney Jeff Fogel, who represented Bendersky, complimented new Commonwealth’s Attorney Joe Platania, whom Fogel challenged last year in the June Democratic primary, for deciding to nolle prosequi the charges.

However, “I don’t think they should have been arrested,” he said. “They were arrested because they didn’t follow orders. The tear gas should never have been used.”

Bendersky “took out a T-shirt and put it over her face” when the tear gas was fired, he said. “To be arrested for trying to protect yourself?”

Bendersky’s family is from the Soviet Union, and Fogel says they fled because her father was a dissident. She’s 18 and just started at VCU. “This was her first demonstration,” he said.

The law originally was written to prevent KKK members from marching masked in public, but Fogel said the people who tend to get arrested under the statute usually aren’t Klansmen.

“I think it’s written wrong,” said Fogel of the mask-wearing law. Rather than citing intent to conceal one’s identity, he said it should target “intent to intimidate.”

Another case from the KKK rally was continued to January 19. Jordan Romeo from Roanoke is charged with assaulting an officer, a felony, disorderly conduct and misdemeanor assault, the latter complaint brought by frequent City Council critic John Heyden.

 

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Bond denied: Third time is not the charm

This poster was released August 24.

Judge Rick Moore slightly shook his head as he watched a video that showed Alex Michael Ramos assaulting Deandre Harris in the Market Street Garage August 12—and then he denied an appeal to release Ramos on bond, despite an associate of Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler offering to house the Georgia man.

It was Ramos’ third unsuccessful attempt at securing bond since he turned himself in August 28 in Forsyth, Georgia, on a felonious assault charge, and the Charlottesville Circuit Court judge cited the violence of the attack and Ramos’ lack of ties to the area.

“I’ve been in this job a long time,” said Moore. The video “is one of the most disturbing things I’ve seen.”

Attorney John Joyce sought to assuage the court’s concerns about lack of local ties with a plan to house Ramos with a new friend in Fluvanna he met through Kessler. Ramos testified that he’d known the woman a few weeks and had spoken to her a number of times on the phone.

The woman testified that she’d called people in Georgia who knew Ramos before considering letting a total stranger live in her house with her husband and kids, and was reassured that “he has no criminal record,” she said.

She also told the judge she’d seen the video from multiple directions and was not concerned about the alleged assault.

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nina Antony described the August 12 scene in which Harris was on the ground “in the fetal position” being beaten by four men when Ramos, who was not part of that group, sprinted into the garage, jumped over people who were watching the attack to possibly kick and then hit Harris.

She also showed Moore a Facebook post Ramos made after August 12. “He’s bragging about it,” she said.

Joyce acknowledged that his client struck one punch “in an insanely heated situation,” but stressed that Ramos had no criminal history and now has a place to live with a “sympathetic family.”

“He didn’t have a record and it didn’t keep him from doing what he did on the video,” said Moore. “It’s quite alarming.”

Calling the assault “gruesome,” Moore said, “You can’t manufacture local ties to the community by saying, ‘Stay at my house.’”

Moore said Ramos was an unreasonable risk to others and there was an unreasonable risk that he’d appear in court.

“I’ve not seen any remorse at all,” said the judge, who quoted Ramos’ post August 12 Facebook post: “We stomped ass. It was fucking fun. VICTORY!!!”

“He’s really not regretful,” observed Moore in denying the appeal. Ramos’ next court appearance is December 14.

 

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Face-punchers plead: Indiana man gets eight months in jail, appeals

Kendall Bills, center, says she's the only survivor from August 12 who has received justice. She's with her attorney, David Franzen, and her father, Michael Bills. Staff photo

 

Two men who were charged with punching two women in the face at unrelated August 12 Unite the Right rally events entered guilty pleas today in Charlottesville General District Court, and one, with a history of assault who was sentenced to eight months in jail, is appealing the conviction.

Dennis Mothersbaugh of North Vernon, Indiana, was seen in a widely circulated video clocking Kendall Bills in the face as the crowd of white supremacists and neo-Nazis dispersed from Emancipation Park. Mothersbaugh, 37, bald with a ginger goatee, came out of the park and swung at a man in a white T-shirt, struck Bills and was ushered out of the area by men carrying League of the South shields.

Dennis Mothersbaugh. Jennings County Jail

He was arrested September 28 in Indiana and charged with misdemeanor assault.

In a courtroom filled with Bills supporters, including former congressman Tom Perriello, Linda Perriello, musician Jamie Dyer, Congregate C’ville’s Brittany Caine-Conley and other friends of her philanthropist parents, Michael Bills and Sonjia Smith, Mothersbaugh entered a guilty plea for assaulting her, with the stipulation no further charges be filed.

Earlier in the week on October 30, Bills was in the same courtroom facing a charge of obstructing free passage at the July 8 KKK rally at Justice Park. That charge was dropped for her and for eight other counterprotesters who linked arms to prevent the entrance of the Loyal White Knights into the park.

Bills described being outside Emancipation Park August 12 to take a stand against hate and racism at an event where Mothersbaugh “intended evil.” She said she was “blinded and tumbling backward” when he punched her. Now, with strangers, “my heart races and my mouth goes dry,” and she doesn’t feel safe in her home, she testified.

Mothersbaugh’s attorney, J.D. Beard, asked Bills if she was wearing a mask, and she said no, although the video of the incident shows what looks like a black surgical mask over her mouth. She also testified that she could have been shouting, “Nazis go home.”

While conceding that his client’s behavior was “completely inappropriate,” Beard pointed out that before the assault, people from outside the park had been throwing bottles of urine and feces into the park, as well as using pepper spray.

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nina Antony told Judge Bob Downer that Mothersbaugh’s “violent, extremely hard punch” to a woman elevates the crime. “This is not even by a long shot his first violence,” she added, tallying five other assaults, some of which had happened in other states.

“This is a pattern of behavior with Mr. Mothersbaugh, who goes to other communities to inflict violence,” with no expectation that anything will happen to him, she said.

Antony asked Downer to send a strong message to those who think they can come here and behave violently with no repercussions. She requested a sentence of 12 months—the maximum for a Class 1 misdemeanor—with six months suspended.

But Downer, who has seen a seemingly unending stream of protesters and counterprotesters through his court from the summer of hate, went even further in demanding accountability. He said the “vicious punch” caused great harm to the victim and to the community, and Charlottesville is now “synonymous with violence and racism.”

He ordered Mothersbaugh to pay a $2,500 fine—again, the maximum for a Class 1 misdemeanor—with $1,000 suspended. And he sentenced Mothersbaugh to 360 days in jail, with 120 suspended, along with anger management classes.

In a statement, Bills says in the three months since “racists were permitted to terrorize our town,” she is the “only survivor who has seen any measure of justice.” She also called upon the city to drop charges against “anti-racist advocates who defended our city.”

Her attorney, David Franzen, and Beard had not returned phone calls about the appeal at press time.

Jacob Smith leaves court after an August 18 hearing. Staff photo

Earlier in court, Jacob L. Smith, 21, from Lousia, pleaded guilty to punching Hill reporter Taylor Lorenz, who was filming on Fourth Street when a Dodge Challenger plowed into a crowd of counterprotesters. Smith screamed at Lorenz to stop filming, according to her video, and then allegedly slugged her and knocked her phone out of her hand.

Downer sentenced him to 270 days, all of which were suspended, and ordered anger management classes and 80 hours of community service.

 

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Kessler dodges disorderly conduct charge, man who spit on him pleads not guilty

Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Nina Antony said the city couldn’t prosecute Jason Kessler for his words alone. Staff photo

The Charlottesville commonwealth’s attorney today asked a judge to not prosecute a disorderly conduct charge against Unite the Right rally organizer Jason Kessler stemming from the May 14 vigil at Emancipation Park, after torch-carrying white nationalists marched through it the night before.

And protester Jordan McNeish, who confronted the “you will not replace us” gang on May 13 and who was charged with disorderly conduct after spitting on Kessler the next night, pleaded not guilty. If he stays out of trouble for six months, that case will be dismissed.

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nina Antony said that Kessler showing up with a bullhorn at the candlelight vigil was protected speech and the evidence “cannot support a conviction.”

Judge Bob Downer did not immediately agree to the prosecution’s request and said he didn’t have to accept it. “I feel it would be a waste of time to reuse the nolle prosequi at this time,” he said.

With the events of August 12 clearly in mind, Downer said, “Freedom of speech comes at a great cost and we’ve all seen that cost in this community.”

Kessler, who’s become a regular in Charlottesville General District Court since he was charged with and convicted of punching Jay Taylor in January, stayed hidden away in a back room until his case was called. After the judge agreed to accept the prosecution’s request to not move forward with the charges, Kessler scurried out a back door of the courthouse.

His attorney, Mike Hallahan, said outside the courthouse that Kessler was exercising free speech. “He broke no law. It was the protesters that broke the law.”

Hallahan also said he had no qualms about representing someone like Kessler, who was chased by an angry mob on August 13. “I’ll take any criminal case from any side of the aisle,” he said.

“Mr. Kessler is a person we have absolutely no respect for,” said Antony. “He’s a very troubled person that we do not think fully understands the damage he’s caused this community and elsewhere, but he was not guilty of criminal conduct.”

In McNeish’s case, Antony said he stipulated there was enough evidence to find him guilty of spitting, but his record did not warrant further prosecution and his case would be put under advisement for six months. If McNeish says out of trouble, it will be dismissed February 21.