Tag: Sines V. Kessler

By Courteney Stuart and Lisa Provence

After nearly three days of deliberations, the jury in Sines v. Kessler found that the white nationalists accused of conspiring to commit racially motivated violence at the Unite the Right rally are liable for $26 million in damages. 

Despite the high-dollar award, the plaintiffs were deprived of complete victory after the jury deadlocked on the first two claims in the suit, both of which alleged conspiracy to commit racially motivated violence in violation of a federal law known as the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. The jury did find the defendants liable for conspiracy under Virginia law.

Following the verdict, attorneys for both sides claimed victory.

“Our goal was to come here and to prove a conspiracy to do racially motivated violence, as to each and every defendant, and to get damages awarded, compensatory and punitive, and we did all those things,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Karen Dunn, who delivered the bulk of the plaintiffs’ closing argument  November 19. 

Dunn emphasized that the jury ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor on the third claim in the case, conspiracy to commit racially motivated violence in violation of Virginia state law. For that claim, the jury awarded $11 million in punitive damages. Each of the 12 individual defendants are on the hook for $500,000, and each of the five white nationalist groups named in the suit owe $1 million.

“Those numbers were eye opening,” plaintiffs’ lead counsel Roberta Kaplan added. 

James Fields, who drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters on August 12, 2017, was found liable for $12.5 million in punitive damages—$6 million each for claims of assault and battery and for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The nine plaintiffs were awarded a total of $1.5 million in compensatory damages. Those ranged from over $622,000 to Natalie Romero, who was injured in James Fields’ car attack on August 12, to zero for the Reverend Seth Wispelwey. 

Attorney Josh Smith, the self-described “pro-white advocate” representing defendants Matthew Parrott, Matthew Heimbach, and the Traditionalist Worker Party, spun the partial verdict as a loss for the plaintiffs.

“I think they expected to waltz through and get everything they wanted and more, and that they were going to humiliate their political opponents. I think it actually worked quite the opposite,” said Smith, who was interrupted at times by protesters calling him out as a Holocaust denier and demanding he leave Charlottesville. 

“I think that at the end, they lost to a few pro se defendants, some solo practitioners,” said Smith. “I think they underestimated their opponents big time.” 

Kaplan denied any loss.

“They weren’t able to reach a verdict on the claim before the Thanksgiving holiday,” she said of the jury, promising that the plaintiffs plan to pursue a verdict on the two deadlocked claims.

Attorney James Kolenich, who represented defendants Jason Kessler, Nathan Damigo, and Identity Evropa, showed less bluster in his post-trial statements than Smith.

“We’re disappointed in the verdict,” Kolenich said. “We think that some of our arguments weren’t considered entirely…however the jury did put in hard work. We respect the verdict and there’s hard work to be done.”

The defendants had argued that their speech was protected by the First Amendment and that they had acted in self-defense. 

Kolenich and Smith both said they will file motions to reduce the damages awarded and suggested plaintiffs will have a hard time collecting any money at all.

“The defendants in the case are destitute,” said Smith. That might mean the plaintiffs won’t see any  award money.

The trial forced traumatized victims to relive their suffering and endure direct questioning from pro se defendants Christopher Cantwell and Richard Spencer. 

Plaintiff Natalie Romero, a UVA student in 2017, was at both the Thomas Jefferson statue after the tiki-torch march through UVA Grounds and on Fourth Street when Fields drove through a crowd of counterprotesters, fracturing her skull and scarring her face. 

Her friend and fellow UVA student Devin Willis thought he was going to be burned alive at the Jefferson statue on August 11.

“I hear it in my nightmares,” Romero said during the trial. “I literally hear the same cadence to the ‘You will not replace us.’ That one was just so terrifying.” 

Romero and Willis were each awarded $250,000 in compensatory damages for racial intimidation at the August 11 tiki torch march. Romero was also awarded over $370,000 for assault and battery and emotional distress.

Plaintiffs Marcus Martin and then-fiancée Marissa Blair joined a celebratory group of counterprotesters with Blair’s friend Heather Heyer. Martin was struck by Fields’ car, and testified that the attack left lasting physical injuries—and cost him his marriage to Blair.

Martin was awarded nearly $260,000 in compensatory damages, and Blair was awarded $102,000. Fields also struck Baker and Chelsea Alvarado, leaving them with ongoing physical and psychological scars. 

Plaintiffs Elizabeth Sines and April Muniz were each awarded $50,000 for intentional infliction of emotional distress; Muniz was awarded an additional $108,000 in compensatory damages for assault and battery.

Twelve individual defendants were found liable for a minimum of $500,000 in punitive damages: organizer Kessler, former alt-right leader Spencer, Cantwell, Heimbach, and Parrott, League of the South leaders Michael Hill and Michael Tubbs, former National Socialist Movement leader Jeff Schoep, Identity Evropa’s Damigo and Elliott Kline, Daily Stormer’s Robert “Azzmador” Ray, and car attack driver Fields. Five organizations were found liable for $1 million each: Vanguard America, Traditionalist Worker Party, LOS, Identity Evropa, and National Socialist Party.

Fields was represented by an attorney for his insurance company. He’s serving multiple life sentences for driving his Dodge Challenger into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing  Heyer and injuring dozens. Four of the plaintiffs in Sines v. Kessler were struck by his car.

The lengthy trial pitted a prestigious pro bono legal team led by Dunn and Kaplan, who represented Edie Windsor in the landmark case that struck down laws against gay marriage, against a patchwork of lower-profile attorneys and pro se defendants. Nonprofit Integrity First for America supported the plaintiffs’ precedent-setting suit, and has said it wants to bankrupt the defendants and show that hate doesn’t pay.

Defendants Spencer and Cantwell represented themselves in court. Spencer called the suit “financially crippling.” Cantwell’s former attorneys asked to be released from representing him after he threatened Kaplan. Cantwell is currently serving 41 months in prison for unrelated threats and extortion charges, and he pleaded guilty to two counts of assault at the Thomas Jefferson statue after the tiki-torch march through UVA.

The “Radical Agenda” podcaster made his pro se representation into a performance that seemed more geared to his followers than to convincing the jury he didn’t conspire to commit violent acts. He used the n-word at least three times in front of the jury, and clips of his show were laden with racist, profanity-laden calls to violence.

In a Vice documentary of the Unite the Right weekend, where Cantwell earned the “crying Nazi” moniker after he learned an arrest warrant had been issued, he showed off the arsenal of firearms he brought to Charlottesville.

In stark contrast to his previous loud behavior and remarks during proceedings, Cantwell remained quiet as he was escorted out of the courtroom in handcuffs to go back to jail.

The complaint was filed in October 2017, and originally was scheduled for trial in 2019, but has been delayed because some defendants flouted orders to produce evidence. A judge has granted default judgments against seven defendants, including Andrew Anglin, the neo-Nazi founder of The Daily Stormer. An arrest warrant has been issued for his colleague Ray, who has blown off every court order and didn’t show up for the trial.

Also earning default judgments are the Nationalist Front; the East Coast Knights of the Ku Klux Klan; the Fraternal Order of the Alt-Knights; the military arm of the Proud Boys; FOAK leader Augustus Invictus; and the Loyal White Knights of the KKK, who protested in Charlottesville in July 2017.

Before dismissing the jury from the trial that lasted over four weeks, federal Judge Norman Moon thanked them for their service and said, “There aren’t any jurors in the Western District of Virginia who have endured a case as long as you have.”

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 jury in Sines v. Kessler deliberated for a second day Monday and went home without a verdict. 

The civil lawsuit claims that two dozen organizers of the deadly Unite the Right rally in August 2017 conspired to commit racial violence. The nine plaintiffs said they were physically and emotionally injured when neo-Nazis came to Charlottesville.

Around noon on Monday, jurors asked Judge Norman Moon if they can’t reach a unanimous decision on the first three claims of the suit—that one or more of the defendants conspired to commit racially motivated violence—”do we still decide on claims 4, 5, and 6?” 

Moon replied to the jury, “They must continue to try to reach a unanimous decision on all six counts.”

“I’d be very disappointed if they can’t agree on any conspiracy counts,” says attorney Deborah Wyatt, who is not associated with the case.

In claim 4, plaintiffs Natalie Romero and Devin Willis, who were assaulted at the Thomas Jefferson statue August 11, 2017, following a tiki-torch march through UVA grounds, contend that the defendants violated Virginia’s racial, religious, or ethnic harassment or violence statute.

The fifth and sixth claims focus on James Fields, who drove into a crowd of counterprotesters August 12. The claims allege assault and battery, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Shortly before that question, the jury had asked Moon, ”Are words a form of violence? (according to federal law)?” 

“Well I would firmly say no,” said Spencer. “This is a philosophical question. You can offer guidelines for answering.”

“I don’t think it’s philosophical,” said Moon, who referred the jury to instruction #30 on free speech. That says, “The abstract advocacy of lawlessness, or mere advocacy of the use of force is protected speech.” However, the instruction goes on to say that if the defendants were engaged in a conspiracy to conduct illegal activity, the First Amendment does not offer protection.

Jurors received a 77-page document with jury instructions, the legal definitions of racially motivated conspiracy, and verdict forms. Plaintiffs called 36 witnesses and entered into evidence hundreds of social media posts, texts, emails, and phone records.

What had been scheduled to be a four-week trial entered into its fifth week Monday. Jurors will return Tuesday to continue deliberations.

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

Day 16, 11/15: Kessler vs. Spencer

Day 17, 11/16: Every man for himself

Day 18, 11/17: The defense rests

Day 19, 11/18: Baby Goats, Jesus and JFK

Day 20, 11/19: Deliberations get underway

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 jury in Sines v. Kessler began deliberations Friday in the trial that seeks to hold two dozen organizers of the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally responsible for conspiring to commit racially motivated violence.

One juror was excused because his two children were possibly exposed to COVID at their school and were told to quarantine. The juror is not vaccinated, said Judge Norman Moon, who assured other jurors the possible exposure occurred Thursday and they could safely deliberate. Eleven jurors remain, and a civil trial jury can proceed with six jurors.

Jurors received a 77-page document with jury instructions, the legal definitions of racially motivated conspiracy, and verdict forms. They asked if they could take the instructions home, which Moon does not recommend, but allowed.

The nine plaintiffs in the case say they were physically and emotionally injured when white nationalists came to Charlottesville in August 2017. Four of the plaintiffs were struck by James Fields’ Dodge Challenger when he plowed into a crowd of counterprotesters on Fourth Street, killing Heather Heyer. The plaintiffs say they incurred significant medical bills, lost wages, and continue to experience PTSD from the attack.

The defendants made no secret of their racist and anti-Semitic leanings, which their attorneys have acknowledged, but say their hate speech is protected under the First Amendment, and their violent rhetoric was just joking around. The defendants have also blamed the police, antifa, bandana-wearers, and some of the plaintiffs for the violence that occurred. 

The complaint says the violence was no accident. Plaintiffs’ attorneys called 36 witnesses to the stand and have entered hundreds of Discord posts, texts, emails, and phone records that they say connected the defendants. The evidence shows how they openly talked about the fight for white supremacy they intended to take to the streets in Charlottesville.

Plaintiffs want $7-10 million for those Fields struck: Natalie Romero, Marcus Martin, Thomas Baker, and Chelsea Alvarado. They are asking the jury to award $3-5 million for the pain and suffering of Marissa Blair, who was with her friend Heyer when she was struck, then-UVA law student Elizabeth Sines, Reverend Seth Wispelwey, April Muniz, and then- UVA student Devin Willis, who was attacked during the August 11 tiki-torch march.

As for punitive damages, attorneys left that up to the jury. “What would it take to make sure the defendants and co-conspirators never, ever do anything like this again?” asked plaintiffs’ counsel Roberta Kaplan in closing arguments.

A civil trial verdict is determined by a “preponderance of evidence,” not the stricter “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard in criminal trials.

The court has already sanctioned defendants Vanguard America, National Socialist Movement, NSM leader Jeff Schoep, who said his phone fell in the toilet, Matthew Heimbach, who said his ex-wives deleted evidence, Elliott Kline, and Daily Stormer Robert “Azzmador” Ray for failing to comply with court orders to produce materials. The court has instructed the jury that Kline, who was jailed for contempt of court, and Ray, who has an arrest warrant and is on the lam, engaged in a conspiracy.

“Certain elements against some of the defendants have been proved,” said Moon. He also told jurors, “You are not partisans. You are judges—judges of the facts.”

The four-week trial was scheduled to end November 19. Jurors will resume deliberations at 9am Monday.

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

Day 16, 11/15: Kessler vs. Spencer

Day 17, 11/16: Every man for himself

Day 18, 11/17: The defense rests

Day 19, 11/18: Baby Goats, Jesus and JFK

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.

Baby goats led to slaughter, Jesus, and the conspiracy to kill JFK were among the wild topics covered by Sines v. Kessler defendants in their closing arguments on Thursday. The defendants faced an uphill battle as they followed the plaintiffs’ presentation that laid out in exacting, damning detail the racist and antisemitic tweets, text messages, online posts, and recordings in which defendants discuss and appear to celebrate violence at the August 2017 Unite the Right rally. 

The most recognizable defendant in the case, alt-right leader Richard Spencer, was among the key players in planning the rally, plaintiffs’ attorney Karen Dunn said in her closing comments. She cautioned the jury that Spencer’s elevated vocabulary, including the use of such phrases as “occupying space” in social media posts, masks the violent ideals he shares with his less erudite co-defendants. 

“Richard Spencer has a more lofty way of saying exactly the same thing,” she said, reminding the jury about Spencer’s racist, antisemitic rant that was recorded and leaked after the rally. 

“Occupying space means physically, by force,” Dunn said. “This is about the use of force, this is about occupying space physically. A common, unlawful purpose at the heart of this conspiracy.”

In his closing, Spencer, who represented himself, appeared indignant at the accusations against him and, echoing the warning Dunn gave the jury about his speech and demeanor, he drew upon philosophy, science, and history to explain his predicament.

“You may have heard the phrase scapegoating,” Spencer said in a professorial tone. “That is exactly what people in the ancient world did. A poor little innocent goat, the crowd would shove him out into the wilderness to die. This is entirely irrational, but I think it was psychologically effective…”

Spencer told the jury he thought the rally would elevate his public speaking profile, and he showed a tweet he sent after the state of emergency was declared on Saturday instructing his thousands of Twitter followers to leave the city. 

He even went so far as to compare himself to another radical thinker who was punished for his ideas: Jesus Christ. And he instructed the jury to apply “Newtonian justice…the fair, rational and precise application of law.” 

Spencer was interrupted repeatedly by presiding Judge Norman K. Moon, including when he attempted to bring former President Donald Trump into his presentation. 

“We can’t go back to law school,” Moon scolded after an objection from the plaintiffs. “There’s no evidence of what Mr. Trump said, and you may not refer to it.”

Edward Rebrook, representing the National Socialist Movement and its former leader Jeff Schoep, began his closing argument with a meandering story about his one-time belief that the assassination of JFK was a conspiracy. “We stood on the grassy knoll,” Rebrook recalled of a visit to Dallas with his late father when Rebrook was finally convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. “Any person with marginal shooting ability could have done what Oswald did. But I wanted to spread the blame around.”

He told jurors that in this case, James Fields alone is responsible for the injuries to plaintiffs. He pointed out that his clients did not attend the torch rally on Friday night and were not present when Fields plowed into a crowd of counterprotesters Saturday afternoon, killing Heather Heyer and injuring many others. 

He also offered an explanation for why Schoep dropped his phone into a toilet three months after the lawsuit was filed, making it impossible to turn it over for discovery in the case.

“Maybe he’s not that bright. Maybe he’s not the criminal mastermind. To believe in this conspiracy theory, you’re asked to ignore key facts and invent others.”

The creative defense arguments followed more than 90 minutes of a systematic closing by Dunn and another hour by lead counsel Roberta Kaplan, who covered multiple topics, including evidence of the defendants’ racial animus and the injuries suffered by each plaintiff. 

Tweet by tweet, Discord post by Discord post, Dunn made the case that every one of the more than two dozen defendants is liable for the physical and emotional harm inflicted on the nine plaintiffs.

“The evidence has been overwhelming,” said Dunn, who started her presentation with a Discord post by rally organizer Jason Kessler from the spring of 2017. She then linked him to defendant Elliott Kline, aka Eli Mosley, a former leader of the Neo-Nazi group Identity Evropa.

“We need to have a battle of Berkeley situation in Charlottesville,” Kessler wrote. “Fight this shit out.” He was referring to a white nationalist rally in Berkeley, California, in April 2017 in which violence erupted between white nationalists and counterprotesters.

Showing messages the two exchanged, Dunn told the jury that Kline and Kessler “agreed to plan the battle of Charlottesville together.” 

Dunn showed multiple posts from various defendants in which they discussed “triggering” counterprotesters into throwing the first punch, using seemingly innocuous tools like shields and flagpoles as weapons, and even driving a car into a crowd, something Dunn said defendant Christopher Cantwell posted about before the rally.

”Blocking traffic is not peaceful protest and every person who reminds you of that without using his car is giving you more slack than you fucking deserve,” Cantwell wrote.

“An important theme emerged,” Dunn said. “If counterprotesters were in your way, you were entitled to plow them over.”

In his closing argument, Cantwell, who also represented himself, vehemently denied he’d wanted violence. He insisted that his rhetoric online and on his former radio show were for entertainment and that he had repeatedly instructed his listeners to obey the law at the rally, unlike some of the others on trial.

“Me and my co-defendants were different people who did not share the same motives,” he told the jury. “I did not want to fight with the antifa legally or otherwise. I have better things to do with my life. I had a carry permit in 2017 and I would not have risked it for punching some commie degenerate.”

To prove a conspiracy, plaintiffs need to show a shared objective to cause racially motivated violence and one overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. Several defendants, including Kline and Robert “Azzmador” Ray, have been sanctioned in the case, and the jury has been instructed to consider as fact that both Ray and Kline conspired to commit racially motivated violence. Dunn told the jury the other defendants also conspired.

“We have proved that in exponents,” she said.

Jury deliberations on verdict and damages begin Friday 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

Day 15, 11/12: Sines speaks, defendant dances

Day 16, 11/15: Kessler vs. Spencer

Day 17, 11/16: Every man for himself

Day 18, 11/17: The defense rests

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 end of the Sines v. Kessler trial is now in sight, as the defense rested its case on Wednesday morning. In the afternoon, the jury received lengthy instructions laying out the requirements to prove the lawsuit’s claim that defendants conspired to commit racially motivated violence at the Unite the Right rally in August 2017.

Attorney Bryan Jones, who represents League of the South, Michael Hill, and Michael Tubbs, called two witnesses to the stand on Wednesday morning. The first was Richard Hamblen, former leader of the Tennessee chapter of League of the South. Hamblen is not a defendant in the case and was involved in a scuffle on Market Street that immediately preceded the infamous attack on DeAndre Harris. Multiple white nationalists were convicted in that assault, and Harris was acquitted of charges that he assaulted Hamblen. 

That didn’t stop Jones from pursuing a line of questions and presenting evidence that appeared aimed at creating a self-defense claim for his clients. He showed a video of a black-clad counterprotester who was wearing a helmet and punching Hamblen. 

On cross-examination, an attorney for the plaintiffs challenged that narrative, citing a previous recorded statement by Hamblen to defendant Michael Hill.

“Don’t you say to Mr. Hill, ‘The sequence is, she came up behind me, grabbed at the flag, tearing the lower attachment loose. I lowered the staff, caught her in the ear hole of her helmet, and she spun around and attacked me,’” the attorney asked.

Jones’ second witness was Charlottesville Police Captain Tony Newberry, who testified only that he had contact with League of the South as the department prepared for the rally.

Pro se defendant Christopher Cantwell again created tension in the courtroom when he presented his case. Cantwell re-called two witnesses, plaintiffs Natalie Romero and Devin Willis. Both had previously testified about their trauma from the torchlight rally and their injuries on August 12. Romero suffered a fractured skull in James Fields’ car attack.

Cantwell appeared intent on undermining their testimony, and while showing Romero a slow-motion video of the melee around the Thomas Jefferson statue, he prompted an astonishing exchange. 

With the video rolling, Romero appeared to realize it may have been Cantwell himself who struck her.

“Wait, did you punch me?” she exclaimed.

“You’re telling me that I punched you? Are you telling the jury I punched you?” Cantwell replied.

Romero responded, “I cannot confirm that, but if you play that again in slow motion…”

“Let’s try to figure out if I hit you, sound good?” Cantwell later said after pressing Romero on her use of the word “punch.”

His subsequent questions of Romero focused on whether she was carrying a green whistle that may have signified her affiliation with a counterprotesting group. Romero said she couldn’t recall after Cantwell showed a video still of her with a green whistle.

He also played video of the counterprotesters marching on Water Street before the car attack chanting “anti-fascista.” 

While questioning Willis, Cantwell focused on Willis’ previous claim that the counterprotesters at the statue were UVA students. Circling counterprotesters on video stills, Cantwell asked Willis to identify several counterprotesters. Willis said he did not recognize them. 

Cantwell asked Willis about his claim he’d seen people carrying handguns, and showed him an image of a counterprotester at the statue apparently wearing a holstered handgun on her hip. 

Cantwell also appeared to unwittingly elicit new evidence that might not work in his favor.

“Do you remember seeing students torn down off the statue one by one and being beaten systematically?” Cantwell asked Willis.

“I remember one woman in a wheelchair being grabbed and pepper sprayed,” Willis responded.

“Do you know if there’s any video of the woman in the wheelchair being grabbed and pepper sprayed?” Cantwell responded.

The remainder of the day was spent finalizing jury instructions, including Judge Norman K. Moon reading 64 pages of instructions aloud to the jurors.

In order to find the defendants liable, the jury must prove that two or more individuals, motivated by animus against Black or Jewish people, conspired to deprive people to be free from the racially motivated violence. 

Sanctions against two of the defendants, Elliott Kline and Robert “Azzmador” Ray, have already established they were engaged in such a conspiracy. The jury was instructed to apply that as fact only to the sanctioned defendants.

Closing arguments are scheduled for Thursday.

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

Day 16, 11/15: Kessler vs. Spencer

Day 17, 11/16: Every man for himself

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 defendants in Sines v. Kessler are accused of conspiring to commit racially motivated violence at the Unite the Right rally in August 2017. In the courtroom, their strategy has been every man for himself. 

The plaintiffs rested their case at 11am on Tuesday, and defendants began presenting their evidence. 

Alt-right leader Richard Spencer, who is representing himself, was the first Sines v. Kessler defendant to present evidence in his own defense. He painted a picture of himself as an ambitious man who thought Unite the Right would be a peaceful event that would further elevate his growing public profile.

In a series of text messages entered into evidence, Spencer invites a Washington Post reporter to Friday’s torchlight march to UVA Grounds.

“The notion that I was expecting awful activity or malign conspiracy I don’t think holds much water,” Spencer said. “I wanted to promote myself, and I’m inviting what could be said to be a hostile journalist. I wanted him to be there.”

After the march, Spencer exchanged additional texts with the reporter.

“I was concerned about his safety,” Spencer told the jury.

A tweet Spencer sent on August 12 at 9:21am shows a smiling selfie accompanied by the words, “Let’s do this.”

“This is an accurate depiction of my state of mind. Happy, confident,” Spencer said. “Things would change.”

Spencer’s photo and video evidence included images of himself after he’d been maced by police before the rally began, his face contorted and his blue shirt soaked with a mixture of sweat and pepper spray. He showed video of himself pleading with Virginia State Police after the state of emergency had been declared and the park was being cleared.

“Why don’t you go break up the communists,” Spencer said. “The ones who are macing us, the ones who are destroying this…” 

Spencer also included evidence that he did not respond to UTR organizer Jason Kessler’s pre-rally text message calling Spencer “my liege,” and that he publicly called Kessler out for an August 18 tweet in which Kessler disparaged car attack victim Heather Heyer.

“I will no longer associate w/Jason Kessler; no one should,” Spencer tweeted.

On cross-examination, the plaintiffs’ attorneys noted that Spencer was already facing a different lawsuit at the time of that tweet, and suggested it was a “tactical move to improve your legal situation.”

In his continuing effort to present himself as a reasonable white nationalist, Spencer also attempted to reframe his viral post-rally rant, in which he uses the word “kikes” and says, “We are going to destroy this fucking town.” 

He called the rant “infantile, shameless, and despicable,” and said it was made to a small audience when he was “feeling powerless, feeling extremely frustrated…after it was dawning on me that this thing was a disaster.” 

While attorneys for other defendants kept their evidence brief or didn’t present any at all, Cantwell, who’s also representing himself, presented extensive evidence in his own defense. As has been the case on other occasions during the trial, Cantwell seemed to be playing to an audience outside the courtroom.

“Hello Mr. Cantwell, good to see you again,” he said as he took the lectern. The joke was met with silence in the courtroom.

Cantwell’s evidence included extensive video shot from his bodycam, starting at the Walmart parking lot on Friday, when he and a group of white nationalists were approached by a group of counterprotesters, one of whom he pointed out for a black Adidas T-shirt.

“Don’t interact with them if you don’t have to. Leave them alone,” Cantwell tells the group he’s with, whom he describes as listeners to his “Radical Agenda” podcast. Additional footage shows Cantwell interacting respectfully with police summoned to the parking lot by an anonymous complaint.

Cantwell then showed extensive video of himself at the Thomas Jefferson statue on Friday night, where he was maced by a counterprotester and had his bodycam ripped from his shirt. He presented more video evidence from Saturday, when he was maced  by a counterprotester wearing a black Adidas T-shirt similar to the one worn by the counterprotester at the Walmart.

In the Friday night recording, a counterprotester speaks to Cantwell.

“How was the Walmart meetup, Chris?” the person asks.

“I felt threatened by this interaction,” he said, pointing out that he walked away from the interaction without committing violence. Both Spencer and Cantwell expressed their concerns about antifa as a threat to their physical safety. 

On cross-examination, plaintiffs’ attorneys asked Cantwell to confirm he’d been convicted of two counts of assault for his role at the torchlight rally.

Cantwell showed video from Saturday in which he’s on his hands and knees immediately after he was temporarily blinded by pepper spray near the park. He screams,“Are we surrounded right now?”

He’s assured that he’s safe by a man with him, who says, “We’re going to fucking kill ‘em.” In the video, Cantwell responds, “Don’t kill anybody.”

“That’s more or less my day on August 12,” he told the jury. “You saw the plaintiffs play for you a clip, where I’m walking down the street with no shirt on because I’ve been pepper sprayed twice in two days after going through substantial effort to make sure nothing like that would happen. And so, if you’ll pardon my language, I didn’t feel very fucking good about it.”

Prior to the defense testimony, presiding Judge Norman Moon read the jury instructions about two of the defendants, Elliott Kline and Robert “Azzmador” Ray, who have been sanctioned in the case for failing to cooperate. 

The sanctions establish as true that Kline and Ray “entered into an agreement with one or more co-conspirators to engage in racially motivated violence,” but do not apply to other defendants in the case. 

The defense is expected to rest on Wednesday, and Moon will then give jury instructions before closing arguments. The trial was scheduled to end on Friday, but that timeline remains in question.

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

Day 16, 11/15: Kessler vs. Spencer

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

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

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.

An expert in extremist movements testified Thursday in the Sines v. Kessler trial that violence is a core quality of white supremacy—and the defendants’ cross-examination of the witness was heated.

The civil case, with nine plaintiffs and two dozen defendants, contends the neo-Nazi organizers of the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally conspired to commit violence.

Pete Simi is a sociology professor at Chapman University who has studied hate crimes, hate groups, and domestic terrorism since 1996. He wrote American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement’s Hidden Spaces of Hate, a book about the culture of the white supremacist movement and the central role violence plays, he said.

White supremacism is an organized effort to transform society, said Simi. It relies upon a common strategy: “the necessity of using violence to achieve the goal of creating a white ethnostate.”

After looking at thousands of texts, videos, and emails, and 575,000 posts on Discord with a colleague, he concluded, “The defendants relied on the core characteristics of the white supremacist movement when they organized Unite the Right.”

He then listed those characteristics: racist ideologies, the glorification and use of violence, the separation of public and private speech, and strategies to create plausible deniability for their actions. 

Simi testified that Unite the Right organizers embraced those core qualities, with race as a leading indicator. Whites are seen as superior, while Jews are described as evil, corrupt, and contaminating society, he said. Blacks are seen as “inherently inferior and prone to criminality. That’s very prominent in their view.”

Plaintiffs’ attorney Roberta Kaplan entered as evidence a disturbing image defendant Robert “Azzmador” Ray posted on Discord that was titled the “n-word tote” and shows a device that impales a man. “This is a very grotesque illustration of what we were talking about,” said Simi, “a graphic, grotesque dehumanization.”

Plaintiffs have submitted as evidence hundreds of messages that rally attendees posted on Discord, a platform originally used for online gaming, said Simi. “At some point I became aware white supremacists had gravitated to Discord,” attracted to the platform because it was encrypted and the gamers there were potential recruits, he said.

Violence is another core characteristic of the white supremacist movement, Simi said. It’s “the way they understand the world,” whether that means discussing specific methods of committing violence or celebrating Hitler.

One component is “white genocide theory,” the idea that the white race is on the verge of extinction, he said, and that belief is related to “replacement theory.” During the August 11 tiki-torch march through UVA, neo-Nazis chanted, “you will not replace us,” and “Jews will not replace us.”

“They believe violence is a necessary course of action, self-defense to prevent extinction,” said Simi.

James Fields, who drove his Dodge Challenger into a crowd, tweeted a meme that said, “Love your race, stop white genocide.” The subtext, said Simi, is that “stopping white genocide requires violence.”

On the Charlottesville 2.0 Discord server, rallygoers discussed how to bring weapons to the event without making it obvious that they were bringing weapons. They talked about the merits of items such as flagpoles or ax handles. “These are almost mundane conversations on what makes a good weapon,” said Simi. 

And that culture of violence is not that different from the Mafia, Al Qaeda, or ISIS, he said. “These conversations are necessary to normalize violence.”

Another characteristic of white supremacist movements is drawing a line between front stage speech and back stage speech, said Simi. Front stage is what they do in public to present themselves as palatable to a wider audience, and back stage is “when you let your hair down,” with more secretive communications and actions, he said.

An example would be KKK leader David Duke, who took a “suit-and-tie approach” in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. He used terms like “white civil rights” and “white heritage” to sound more innocuous, said Simi. The National Socialist Movement dropped its use of the swastika because they “believed it would help their optics,” not because they disavowed Nazis, he said. 

In the lead-up to the rally, Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler emailed NSM leader Jeff Schoep and said the number one thing his guys could do would be to show up in plain clothes without flags. Schoep replied, “Keep in mind we ceased the use of the swastika in 2016.”

The fourth common characteristic of white supremacist movements that Simi identified is plausible deniability. The strategy involves doublespeak—talking in an intentionally deceptive way—and codes like the number 14, a common 14-word neo-Nazi slogan, or 88, a code for “heil Hitler,” in which each 8 represents the eighth letter of the alphabet. Joking and the use of humor are also ways to deflect racist intent, and triggering to provoke violence can give the cover of self-defense, and also offer plausible deniability. 

Defense attorney James Kolenich, who represents Kessler, Nathan Damigo, and Identity Evropa, wanted to know if other academics use the terms front stage and and back stage in referring to white supremacists. “They do,” said Simi, and listed several.

Kolenich asked if Simi was a member of antifa—”No”—and if Simi’s objective was to dismantle the alt-right. Simi compared his work to that of a cancer researcher and said, “Am I interested in helping prevent and intervene in violent white supremacy? Yes.”

Some of the most bizarre questioning came from Josh Smith, who represents Matthew Heimbach, Matthew Parrott, and the Traditionalist Worker Party. Smith interrupted and talked over Simi—and Judge Norman Moon. His questions veered to China, Israel, Singapore, and Hillary Clinton.

On the latter, Moon said, “Mr. Smith, your question makes no sense.”

Smith asked Simi, “Are you saying whites are not responsible for the most advancements in technology?” 

“Is that a serious question?” replied Simi.

Pro se defendant Chris Cantwell wanted to know if critical race theory influenced Simi’s work.

“We’re not going down the road of critical race theory,” instructed Moon.

Cantwell, who earlier in the trial asked co-defendant Heimbach his favorite Holocaust joke, said, “When is a joke a joke?” In his questions about the offensive meme Azzmador posted, he used the n-word twice.

At one point, when Kaplan objected to the defense free-for-all, Cantwell, who is currently serving time for threatening to rape the wife of another neo-Nazi, said loudly, “I didn’t file a lawsuit about race.” 

During Cantwell’s cross-examination of plaintiff April Muniz, who was on Fourth Street when Fields crashed into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing Heather Heyer, he went into what has been dubbed the “bandana defense.”

He has questioned the plaintiffs present on Fourth Street, four of whom were seriously injured, about whether they saw people there wearing red or black bandanas, which can be associated with antifa, and he has replayed videos of the crash to its victims to point out bandana wearers. 

He seemed excited when Muniz said she was wearing a bandana—a gray one. “It was a hot day,” she said. He wanted to know if people were wearing helmets, goggles, and black, also possible indicators of antifa, which Muniz testified she’d never heard of before August 12. “I was wearing black,” she said.

“Hot day, eh,” he said.

Kaplan said the plaintiffs will call the last of their witnesses Friday, except for Cantwell and Kessler, who will testify as defense witnesses to keep them from coming to the stand twice. The four-week, slow-moving trial is scheduled to end November 19, but there’s worry in the courthouse about whether that will happen.

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”

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 Reverend Seth Wispelwey was not physically injured at the August 12, 2017, Unite the Right rally, but he said he was “wounded badly that summer.” Wispelwey is a plaintiff in Sines v. Kessler, and when he took the stand Wednesday, defendants questioned his Christianity and tried to portray him as a member of antifa.

Wispelwey, who grew up in Charlottesville, was an ordained minister with the United Church of Christ. In 2017, he co-founded Congregate, a group of local clergy whose purpose was to “show up in loving support for our community for what we understood would be a violent event,” he testified.

Friends and colleagues who were Black, Jewish, Muslim, and queer saw the Unite the Right rally as an “existential threat” and feared for their bodily safety, he said. Congregate held weekly sessions with singing, theological discussions, and training for “how to act lovingly in potentially volatile situations,” he said. “We were explicitly a nonviolent entity.” 

The group put out a national call for support, and religious leaders like Cornel West answered.

On August 11, Congregate held a prayer meeting at St. Paul’s Episcopal. “We felt called as members of the faith community to use that as an opportunity to respond and to tell a different story when people gathered,” said Wispelwey. 

An estimated 700 people assembled in the church. He called the evening “a mountaintop experience,” where the “spirit felt alive… It felt like a real manifestation of our motto, to concretely project love over fear.”

That mood changed. As the service was winding down, he learned of the tiki-torch march down the street at UVA. “We really didn’t want to create a panic,” he said. Congregants were told there was a situation and they were “going to keep singing and no one is going out the front doors.”

Worried clergy eventually started evacuating people in small groups out the back of the church, and it took until 11:30pm to get people rides and home safely, he said.

Early August 12, Wispelwey attended a sunrise service at the historic African American First Baptist Church on West Main Street, then he walked with a group of clergy to what was then called Emancipation Park, where the Unite the Right rally was scheduled to take place.

A group of between 40 and 50 leaders and congregants linked arms outside the park around 8:15am. “It was a practical way of staying connected when there was a lot going on,” he said. And spiritually, “we wanted to communicate that we were there together.”

Unite the Righters had been entering the park from its southwest corner. The Congregate group moved to the steps on the southeast corner of the park, where several neo-Nazis broke through. “I heard yelling and ‘kill the faggot priests,’” said Wispelwey, adding that he was pushed and tripped into the bushes.

“It was a sobering moment,” he recalled. “We were rattled. We wanted to understand what had happened. We could feel the dread.”

Later, he was at Escafe on Water Street when he heard a car had hit people. He rushed to Fourth Street.

He remembers seeing a young Black woman writhing on the ground, two smashed cars, glass and blood, and bodies on the road. “I didn’t know what had happened,” he said. “It was awful.”

Wispelwey said he was diagnosed with PTSD, has night terrors, panic attacks, and has been unable to work full-time or go out socially as he once did. “I used to be an extrovert,” he said. “I don’t even know what I am anymore.”

After August 12, when the nation was trying to make sense of what had happened, Wispelwey wrote that “antifa saved my life.” He’d recently learned the term, and thought it was a catchall for counterprotesters against fascism, he testified.

A video showed shield-carrying League of the South and Traditionalist Worker Party members marching toward the park. “When League of the South was walking up, other counterprotesters moved bodily in front of us,” explained Wispelwey. “I was afraid… League of the South charged into them and they took the hit.”

Saying that antifa saved his life and later tweeting in 2019 that “Jesus was antifa” were like red meat to pro se defendants Richard Spencer and Crying Nazi Christopher Cantwell, who got to cross-examine Wispelwey.

Spencer asked what sola scriptura meant, a term Wispelwey said he hadn’t heard since divinity school, and asked him to recount the story of Jericho. “You are a pastor,” admonished Spencer. “This is the Bible we’re talking about.” He followed that with a question about what the Bible says about slavery—“if you have read it.”

Judge Norman Moon intervened when Spencer asked about how United Church of Christ followers go to heaven. Spencer told the judge he believed Wispelwey was an activist “claiming to be motivated by faith.”

The alt-righter asked the pastor if he believed “fellow Protestants are brothers in Christ.”

Said Wispelwey, “I don’t subscribe to the belief that, just because someone calls himself a Christian, that we share the same beliefs.”

Cantwell questioned Wispelwey for about 90 minutes, calling him “Seth” until attorney Roberta Kaplan objected. Cantwell tried to link Congregate with antifa, and asked whether the clergy blocked entrance to the park. “You’re bodily confronting people whose political opinions you don’t like,” he accused.

Wispelwey said he was not blocking entrance to the rally and was making a stand and showing solidarity. 

Cantwell asked if he felt compelled to confront hate speech. “I feel called to show up in the name of love when people are in fear and under attack,” Wispelwey answered.

Cantwell took issue with a Slate article in which Wispelwey wrote, “God is not okay with white supremacy.” 

He also questioned a Wispelwey tweet that said, “Hate speech leads to physical violence…” Asked Cantwell, “Is that because your friends use violence against people who engage in hate speech?”

Replied Wispelwey, “I can’t think of any friends who engage in violence.”

Also on the stand on Wednesday was Marchus Martin, who was injured when James Fields accelerated into the Fourth Street crowd.

Martin, who is immortalized in Ryan Kelly’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph, said he pushed his fiance Marissa Blair out of the way as the car “hit me and tossed and turned me through the air.”

Martin’s left leg was shattered and he has two screws in his ankle, he testified. He couldn’t walk for eight months, and now he can’t play basketball or softball or lift weights.

Later, he was diagnosed with a head injury, he said. “I just was not feeling right,” experiencing anger and trust issues that made it difficult for people, including Blair, to be around him. “It pushed the best thing that ever happened to me out of my life.”

The last witness of the day was defendant Nathan Damigo, who founded Identity Evropa and was lauded in alt-right circles for punching a female protester in the face in Berkeley. Member and fellow co-defendant Elliott Kline was a major organizer of the Unite the Right rally, and on IE’s payroll. 

While in prison for pulling a gun and robbing a man who looked Iraqi, Damigo became a fan of KKKer David Duke, and he testified that he believed America was created for white people.

Damigo was a regular at Spencer’s Alexandria apartment, dubbed the “fash loft,” and he posted on Discord as “Fashy Haircut.” Was such usage “tongue in cheek?” asked Spencer on cross-examination. It was, agreed Damigo.

Damigo also came up with the idea of torch-lit marches in Charlottesville in May and August 2017. Asked if he knew torches and fire invoke Nazi Germany for Jews and their supporters, he replied, “I do not recall thinking of that.” Damigo did concede he was aware the KKK in the past had used “torch implements.”  

Because the four-week trial is moving slowly, court will continue Thursday, despite it being Veterans Day, a federal holiday.

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