Tag: Sines V. Kessler

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.

Alt-right message board discussions of a false flag attack, racist and antisemitic jokes, and disappearing evidence. Those were among the topics covered in a nearly full day of testimony on Tuesday from one of the men responsible for Nazi-inspired propaganda leading up to the Unite the Right rally in August 2017.

Traditionalist Worker Party co-founder Matthew Parrott took the stand as an adverse witness for the plaintiffs on the 12th day of the Sines v. Kessler trial. The lawsuit alleges Parrott and two dozen other defendants conspired to commit racially motivated violence at the infamous rally.

Parrott, an IT professional and self-described Christian, claimed he and his organization use only nonviolent means to accomplish their white nationalist goals, a claim that was repeatedly challenged by plaintiffs’ attorney Michael Bloch.

“Have you personally punched counterprotesters?” Bloch asked Parrott.

“I’m quite the physical coward. Not much of a fighter,” Parrott said, admitting he had punched a counterprotester at a rally in Terre Haute, Indiana. He described the act as self-defense because the counterprotester had assaulted one of Parrott’s white nationalist compatriots.

“I disabled the gentleman and turned him over to the Terre Haute city police,” said Parrott, insisting that the lack of any criminal charges against him for the incident support his claim that it was justified.

Bloch used Parrott’s online statements and exchanges leading up to the Unite the Right rally to poke more holes in his claims of nonviolence. He showed posts on the Discord server prior to Unite the Right in which Parrott participates in exchanges about violent acts. He pressed Parrott on his claim that TWP sanctioned people for promoting violence.

“The more violent you could make a rally, the more money you could make for your organization,” said Bloch.

“That’s a despicable misrepresentation of our party’s plans,” Parrott responded.

Parrott freely admitted to holding antisemitic and racist views, but said it was important to stay away from using   racial slurs or the Nazi salute in public, to avoid unnecessary provocation. Bloch further challenged him on the claim that he eschewed violence, showing the jury an online exchange in which Parrott said he’d like to see his TWP co-founder Matthew Heimbach “chimp out” on counterprotesters at a rally in Anaheim.

“I was watching the live footage and lamenting it was boring to watch because everything was going safely. That was the joke,” Parrott replied, denying he’d intended the term as a racial slur or that he’d actually wanted to see Heimbach assault counterprotesters.

Bloch’s efforts to impeach Parrott as a witness continued as he compared Parrott’s social media posts and his testimony in a June 2020 deposition to his statements on the stand. He also asked Parrott about his connections to his fellow defendants, including Richard Spencer and Christopher Cantwell, both of whom are representing themselves in the case.

Parrott said he’d written several articles for Spencer’s alt-right website, and also knew Cantwell.

“He’s a radio shock jock,” Parrott chuckled, describing Cantwell. “I found him an amusing character.”

Bloch pointed out discrepancies in Parrott’s current description of Cantwell to his 2020 deposition in which he acknowledged Cantwell was a racist at the time of the rally.

“I did not realize during the time I was taking this deposition…” Parrott said.

“That there would be a record of it,” Bloch interjected.

“I did not understand while giving this deposition that the term racist would be redefined out from under what I meant it in the deposition,” Parrott said.

Bloch showed the jury an April 2017 exchange on the Discord server, in which multiple users discussed  setting up a false flag attack, and blaming it on antifa,  to stir tension and precipitate violence.

“Do you guys think it would be good to make generic antifa pages,” one poster writes.

“Yes, I had a fake antifa Facebook page,” responds another user called Dr. Cocoa Puff, whose real name is Corey Smith.

Bloch ended his direct examination of Parrott with a series of questions about evidence in the case that disappeared after the lawsuit was filed in Oct. 2017. Several white nationalists’ cell phones were damaged or lost, and Parrott wrote a Facebook post warning fellow white nationalists about their social media accounts.

“If you were involved in any altercation in Cville and you haven’t disabled your social media, you should do so,” Parrott wrote in the February 2018 post. “I know it’s a bit late for some folks…”

On cross-examination, the defense team—including Spencer and Cantwell—sought to distance Parrott from the other defendants, downplaying their relationships before August 2017 in an effort to undermine the conspiracy claim at the heart of the lawsuit. 

Parrott said he’d written a few blog posts for Spencer’s website but had never been paid, and told defense attorney Josh Smith that he hadn’t collaborated with defendant Jeff Schoep in planning the Unite the Right rally or witnessed Schoep commit acts of violence that weekend.

Smith also asked Parrott about the success of other rallies in which he’d participated, including a white nationalist rally in Philadelphia on Columbus Day 2015. Despite a large turnout of counterprotesters at the event, Parrott said there was no violence.

“Everybody had a good time,” said Parrott. “It was safe, legal, and fun.”

The trial will continue until at least November 19, with court remaining in session on Veterans Day in an effort to conclude the proceedings on time.

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, 11/6: “It gave me Nazi vibes”

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.

Marissa Blair narrowly missed getting hit by James Fields’ car when he plowed into a crowd of counterprotesters on August 12, 2017. Her best friend Heather Heyer was killed and her then-fiance suffered trauma that ultimately broke up their marriage. On Monday, she relived all of that in U.S. District Court as a plaintiff in Sines v. Kessler, the lawsuit that contends Unite the Right organizers conspired to commit racial violence.

With her hair in a ponytail and wearing a suit and heels, Blair, now an attorney who just passed the bar last month, took the witness stand.

She said didn’t hear about the August 12, 2017, Unite the Right rally until a couple of weeks before. She saw a poster for the event that had Confederate flags and Third Reich imagery. “It gave me Nazi vibes,” she testified.

“I ultimately decided I was going after the August 11 tiki-torch march,” she said. “It looked very intimidating. I decided to go to stand up for the people of Charlottesville.”

She and her fiancé Marcus Martin arrived downtown with her colleague Courtney Commander after the rally had been declared an unlawful assembly, and they met up with Heyer. They joined a “happy, joyous crowd” on Water Street. 

Attorneys played a video Blair took of the march. Jurors could see the diverse crowd on Water Street and then on Fourth Street. In front of Blair in the video is Heyer with a long, dark braid. And then the camera seemed to spiral out of control. 

“When you hear all the commotion, it’s when the car slams through,” she said. “The car barely missed me. Marcus pushed me aside.”

She described the terror, chaos, and confusion that followed. “We didn’t know what had happened,” she said. “I was looking for Marcus. I went to where we had been. I saw his red baseball hat.”

Her voice choked with emotion. “It was covered with blood.” People led her to Martin and she went with him to the hospital. There, she said, she learned Heyer was dead.

“I dropped to my knees and sobbed,” she said. 

Blair said she could count her friends on two hands, and Heyer was one of them. “She said I was an optimist and she was a realist. She cared about people.”

Physically, she said she was lucky compared to so many other people who were injured, including Martin, who had a broken leg. 

“My emotional scars were way worse than my physical ones,” she testified. “No one expects when you’re in that peaceful group that your friend would be killed standing up for what she believed.” She said she had survivor’s guilt and would ask herself, “Why is Heather gone when I’m still here?” 

She worried that she would lose a new job after August 12 because of difficulty focusing, and said she hasn’t been able to read a book since 2017.

Pro se defendant Christopher Cantwell, aka the Crying Nazi, asked how she had finished law school if she couldn’t read a book. “I did have to read to pass the bar,” she said, but it wasn’t as easy as before when she’d done well in school.

Cantwell focused on the video she shot, and wanted to know if she’d seen people wearing bandanas and goggles. 

“At the time that didn’t stick out in my mind,” she answered.

Monday’s testimony also included depositions from white supremacists who had come to Charlottesville for Unite the Right.

In 2017, Dillon Hopper was head of Vanguard America, the group with which James Fields was photographed throughout the day. Vanguard is a defendant in the case and the court has sanctioned it for failing to provide evidence.

Hopper was unable to recount names of the members of Vanguard, and yawned throughout his deposition. He said he’d met other defendants—Matthew Heimbach of Traditionalist Worker Party, Jeff Schoep with the National Socialist Movement, and some of the League of the South members—at a Pikeville, Kentucky, rally earlier in 2017.

Hopper said he was kicked out of Vanguard before the Unite the Right rally, and had talked to then-leader Thomas Rousseau after the murder. “He told me he let James Fields into the Vanguard America formation in Charlottesville,” said Hopper. “They didn’t know who he was.  They just gave him a shield to make Vanguard America look larger.”

The plaintiffs’ attorneys have entered scores of exhibits from Discord Charlottesville 2.0 server, where Unite the Righters planned the rally.

In one, Hopper wrote, “At this rally, violence is imminent.” He compared the injuries suffered to a surfer going into the water and getting attacked by a shark. 

When asked if he thought it was the counterprotesters’ fault they were hit by Fields’ car, he replied, “Absolutely. Yes.”

Hopper’s former Vanguard colleague Rousseau, a young man with long dark hair, also testified in a deposition. In an attempt to distance himself from Vanguard, Rousseau has started a new organization called Patriot Front.

Rousseau recalled discussing the rally on Discord with co-defendants Jason Kessler, Robert “Azzmador” Ray, and “maybe” Richard Spencer and Cantwell. 

He traveled from Texas in a 15-person van, but could only remember Ray and the first names of two fellow passengers.

He was asked to read a Discord post he made that contained racial slurs. “I try not to use vulgarity anymore,” said Rousseau. But in another post, he made clear he wanted Vanguarders at Unite the Right to let people know that “fascism is fucking beautiful.”

League of South’s Michael Tubbs can be seen on many videos charging through lines of counterprotesters. He testified from Florida on a spotty video feed.

Tubbs, who has long gray hair, a moustache, and is missing a few teeth, joined LOS, a neo-Confederacy group, in 2000, and said the group “represented my views on Southern nationalism.”

The League’s website describes those views:  “We see ourselves as the soul of the Hard Right. We will not compromise our vision of a southern homeland for whites.”

Tubbs said his group met with “similarly minded white nationalist groups”—Traditionalist Worker Party and the National Socialist Movement—at the Market Street Garage to march as a column to the rally at the statue in Lee Park.

A September 12, 2017, email from LOS founder Michael Hill to Tubbs and others said, “[W]e wanted a public confrontation in Charlottesville for the world to see and we got it.”

“Nobody wants a physical confrontation if they can avoid it,” testified Tubbs. However, several videos show him plunging into confrontations even once his group was in the park. “I was coming to the rescue of our friends who were beaten by communists,” he explained. 

Unasked by the attorney, Tubbs offered, “I will tell you, it was the proudest moment of my life that day on the streets of Charlottesville.”

And Tubbs’ brawling paid off for the League of the South. An email from LOS member Charlene Braun said, “I must admit for recruiting, I show videos of Charlottesville. What a total badass you are. You helped me recruit 20 some guys.”

Tubbs tweeted six different times that “James Fields did nothing wrong.” Initially Judge Norman Moon refused to let plaintiffs’ attorney Alan Levine enter them as evidence. After lunch he’d reconsidered. “I rather abruptly ruled that Mr. Levine could not put in the tweets,” he told the jury. “I’m going to allow him to insert all the tweets so they will be in the record.”

The final white nationalist of the day was Vasillios Pistolis with Atomwaffen Division, which Southern Poverty Law Center describes as a “terroristic neo-Nazi organization.” Pistolis brought a flagpole with staples sticking out of it to the rally and was seen in video wielding it like a baseball bat. His testimony was notable for the number of times he took the Fifth Amendment. 

He was beside Cantwell August 11 at the Thomas Jefferson statue at UVA. Asked if he’d assaulted a counterprotester, he replied, “I was never charged and I invoke the Fifth.”

A Discord post he made after August 12 said that an attendee “made antifa bleed yesterday by curb stomping,” a term he defined as slang for violence, “flawlessly” winning a fight.

With the four-week trial now entering its third week, there’s been some concern the trial won’t end by November 19. Moon floated the idea of having court Thursday, which is Veterans Day, a federal holiday, and said he’d run it by the jury Tuesday.

Testimony continues Tuesday at 9am.

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

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 white nationalists who marched through the city on August 11 and 12, 2017 shouted, chanted, and screamed their hateful rhetoric. Now, those same people are defendants in the Sines v. Kessler case, and are on trial this month for conspiring to commit racially motivated violence that weekend. The tone in court has been mostly calm and professional, in jarring juxtaposition to some of the chilling testimony offered on Friday.

“One hundred and nine times in the history of the world, the Jew has been banished from our midst. Lord, we ask that you make 110 come soon for our southland,” said League of the South founder and defendant Michael Hill in a video played for the jury. In the video, Hill, an adverse witness for the plaintiffs, calls the Holocaust “that hoax that the Jew has been perpetrating for 80 years now,” before he burns the Israeli flag, a copy of the Talmud, and The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx.

“Good morning Dr. Hill,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Alan Levine politely as Hill took the stand. Levine then conducted questioning in which Hill confirmed his hatred of Jews and people of color. Hill, previously a history professor at historically Black Stillman College, founded League of the South in 1994 and resigned from the university in 1998, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups and individuals around the country.

Levine presented video of Hill and his LOS deputy Michael Tubbs charging through a line of counterprotesters on Market Street on August 12, and video of LOS members knocking a female counterprotester to the ground and pepper spraying her. Levine also questioned Hill about his role in helping to organize the rally.

“I did speak with Mr. Duke, and I put him in contact with Mr. Kessler and they made the arrangements,” Hill said of David Duke, the infamous white supremacist, longtime KKK leader, and one-time candidate for the U.S. Senate in Louisiana. Duke was present at the Unite the Right rally, and spoke briefly in McIntire Park after the rally was officially canceled. 

Hill testified that League of the South had something in common with the other groups coming to Charlottesville for the rally that weekend

“They share the same common enemy,” Hill said.

“Enemies included the Jew, correct,” Levine asked.

“As far as I could tell,” Hill replied.

Levine played audio of Hill gushing about the success of the rally, and presented Hill’s post-UTR tweets, including one in which Hill wrote, “James Fields did nothing wrong.” 

Friday’s testimony also included an account from plaintiff Thomas Baker, who went to downtown Charlottesville on August 12, 2017, against the wishes of his wife. “When you know something is right, and you might be fearful to stand up for it, that’s the time you need to,” Baker said. “It was incredibly important to me, because of some fear, to be present.”

Baker, who had just moved to Charlottesville at the time and was working as a horticulturist, was struck and badly injured during James Fields’ fatal car attack. He testified that he suffered torn ligaments in his hip that required surgery to repair months later. He has permanent physical limitations as a result of his injuries and suffers from PTSD.

“If someone drops a book, it throws your brain back into that exact moment. It’s incredibly paralyzing,” said Baker.

Pro se defendant Christopher Cantwell, who formerly hosted a white nationlist podcast, pressed Baker on his testimony that he counterprotested the rally because he “knew that the people who were coming had a history of violence.”

“Groups like the KKK,” Baker answered. “But I wouldn’t have known the specifics of these details, because these groups and individuals conspired to do this.”

“Disregard the last two sentences of the witness,” presiding Judge Norman Moon ruled in response to a defense objection.

“Is it your testimony that Jason Kessler had a history of racist and antisemitic violence?” Cantwell asked.

“Violence, I don’t know, but rhetoric and instigation,” Baker replied.

“We’re in a courtroom, so specifics would be nice,” Cantwell countered sarcastically, prompting an objection from the plaintiffs’ counsel that was sustained by Moon.

The trial is scheduled to last through Nov. 19. Concerned about the slow pace of the trial, plaintiffs’ attorneys have asked the defense team to estimate how many days they’ll require for evidence. Their answer is due on 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

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.

In 2017, Richard Spencer was the poster boy for the alt-right. More recently, he’s the defendant in Sines v. Kessler who was on the witness stand for over four hours Thursday. Much of his testimony involved quibbling over what he’d said in a 2020 deposition, texts, and other public statements.

This was the ninth day in the lawsuit against the neo-Nazis who led the violent 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, and patience in U.S. District Court started to wear thin.

Plaintiffs’ attorney Michael Bloch, an attorney with lead lawyer Roberta Kaplan’s firm, questioned Spencer, who repeatedly said, “I don’t want to quibble” when his answers in court differed from earlier statements. 

“Do you believe the races should be separated?” asked Bloch.

“No,” said Spencer.

Bloch pulled up Spencer’s July 2020 deposition, in which he agreed that the races should be separated.

“That’s a semantic issue,” insisted Spencer from the witness stand.

“Do you believe Blacks and Hispanics are an underclass?” asked Bloch. Spencer replied no.

Bloch played a 2017 radio show in which Spencer said, “Yeah, a lot of these people are going to be an underclass we don’t want in our society,” specifically mentioning Black and Hispanic people, going on to say they have lower IQs and are predisposed to commit crimes.

Spencer continued to quibble on the stand. “Did I say there are average IQ issues between races? I’ve written books on this.”

He conceded he was an advocate for a white ethno-state, but disagreed that such a move would result in a race war. “I was trying to effect social change,” he said.

Bloch introduced a video in which Spencer proclaimed his ownership of a white America, and said, “For us it is conquer or die.”

In an April 2017 tweet, he wrote, “Our msg to antifa: WE WILL CRUSH YOU.”

On the stand, Spencer described his tone as “tough talk.”

Spencer acknowledged there were some racial slurs he would use privately, but not publicly, because “I don’t believe in demeaning anyone in public.”

In a secretly recorded tirade from just after the Unite the Right rally, Spencer can be heard saying “little fucking octaroons, my ancestors enslaved those little pieces of shit. I rule the fucking world. Those pieces of fucking shit get ruled by me.”

No doubt knowing this would come up, Spencer, who is representing himself in the trial, had mentioned the racist spiel in his opening statement to the jury, and said Thursday that was not his sincerely held belief.

“Moments like that capture my most childish, embarrassing sentiments, the animal brain, you could say,” he said. “I’m ashamed of it… That is me at my absolute worst.”

Spencer has maintained that he was merely an invited speaker to the Unite the Right, not an organizer.

In court, he admitted that he designated his close associates Greg Conte and co-defendant Elliott Kline, aka Eli Mosley, both with Identity Evropa, to deal with rally organizer Jason Kessler.

“I just didn’t want to talk to Kessler,” said Spencer. “I don’t really like him, to be honest.”

While Spencer has said he was not on the Discord Charlottesville 2.0 server, where plans for Unite the Right fomented, “you didn’t say that Conte was,” said Bloch.

“The only person I would really deal with was Greg,” said Spencer.

Kline has also testified that he was on the Discord leadership chat for Charlottesville 2.0.

Bloch also asked about Spencer’s relationshop with neo-Nazi Matthew Heimbach, who was on the stand Wednesday. Heimbach testified he’d had maybe one conversation with Spencer and that they talked about their families. On Thursday, Bloch asked Spencer if the two had talked about white nationalism. “That topic is so broad,” said Spencer. “I’m sure it came up.” He called the difference between talking about family and white nationalism “semantics.”

During Spencer’s deposition, which Bloch played, he said he and Heimbach had talked about “the big picture stuff” regarding white nationalism.

In court, Spencer complained, “I just said yes. I don’t know why you keep asking.”

By then Moon seemed to be annoyed with the attorney’s method, and had interrupted several times. “What is the point?” queried the judge. “Are you testing his memory? Are you trying to impeach him? I think you would agree any lawyer worth his salt would know the answer before asking.” He added that “quibbling” over the terms was taking a lot of time.

Quibbling continued to be the theme when the court reconvened after lunch. Spencer called Chris “Crying Nazi” Cantwell an acquaintance, and said he’d exchanged seven texts with Cantwell and one phone call.

Bloch had produced records showing 88 texts between Cantwell and Spencer in a six-week period. Spencer said that he was counting “instances” of communication, not actual texts.

“This is becoming time-consuming,” said Moon. “We’ve gone through this exercise. That’s enough.”

Bloch said he wanted to correct the impression Spencer left with the jury, and he produced phone records of three phone calls as well.

“A five-second phone call,” scoffed Spencer, looking at the records. “I probably didn’t count that. I might not have counted calls that were not answered. I’m not trying to lie.”

More quibbling came when Spencer said he didn’t lead the August 11 tiki-torch march on UVA Grounds. A video introduced as evidence has Spencer saying, “I was in the lead.” And a text from Kessler told him to come to the front. 

“I was certainly at the front,” testified Spencer. “We could quibble about who led.” 

Spencer maintained he saw no violence that night, only a little pushing and shoving. He said the hundreds of torch-bearing neo-Nazis that surrounded the 30 or so students at the Thomas Jefferson statue in front of the Rotunda were merely “occupying space” to get their message of “dominance” out. “It was not about violence,” he said. 

Plaintiffs Nataie Romero and Devin Willis, then UVA students, have both testified they were pepper sprayed and called racial slurs that night at the statue. Cantwell pleaded guilty to two counts of assault and was banned from Virginia for five years.

A photo of police dragging Spencer out of the former Lee Park on August 12 was entered. “We passively resisted,” he said.

“You screamed at police officers they’d have to drag you out of there,” said Bloch, noting that police maced Spencer.

After the rally was declared an unlawful assembly, Spencer, Conte, and co-defendant Nathan Damigo came up with talking points, according to texts: “The police broke up a peaceful assembly. Forced us into a dangerous space with antifa.”

“You claim you wanted to give a speech at Unite the Right,” said Bloch. “You wanted to hear other speakers. You wanted it to be peaceful. None of that happened.”

“It was tragic,” said Spencer.

“That sounds like the right thing to say in court,” said Bloch.

“It’s true,” said Spencer.

Bloch entered another exhibit with Spencer on a show called “Goytalk” that happened long enough after August 12 that he’d grown a moustache. Spencer said of Unite the Right, “That sense of togetherness and boldness and power. It was amazing.”

“You thought Charlottesville was amazing because you accomplished exactly what you set out to do,” said Bloch.

“Absolutely not,” said Spencer.

Testimony continues Friday with Cantwell’s cross examination of fellow defendant Spencer.

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

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.

Warm praise for Hitler, AWOL defendants, and a white nationalist antisemite cross-examining a holocaust scholar. These disturbing scenes played out on day eight of Sines v. Kessler, the lawsuit accusing more than two dozen white nationalist groups and individuals of conspiring to commit racially motivated violence at the Unite the Right rally in August 2017.

In a repeat of previous days, pro se defendant Christopher “Crying Nazi” Cantwell conducted the lengthiest cross examination of the day, a friendly, at times even jovial questioning of fellow defendant and Traditionalist Worker Party founder Matthew Heimbach.

“What’s your favorite holocaust joke,” Cantwell asked Heimbach in one of numerous exchanges that was interrupted by an objection from plaintiffs’ attorneys.

“I’ll withdraw the question,” Cantwell responded immediately.

Cantwell and Heimbach also talked about antifa, and Heimbach told Cantwell about his belief that counterprotesters at Unite the Right would use makeshift weapons. 

At an event in Terre Haute, Indiana, “We were attacked by antifa with bike locks and locks in socks,” Heimbach said. 

Cantwell also asked Heimbach if he believed James Fields did anything wrong when he drove a car into a crowd of counterprotesters, murdering 32-year-old Heather Heyer and maiming many others.

“No,” Heimbach replied, insisting that Fields had been acting in self-defense, even though he has been found guilty of murder.

Hitler was another subject for the pair’s cheerful banter, with Heimbach denying that the Holocaust had happened and testifying that he’d read Hitler’s manifesto Mein Kampf multiple times.

“He utilized democracy to gather votes of the German people,” Heimbach said. “He advocated for law and order.”

It wasn’t the last praise of Hitler the jury would hear on Wednesday. 

“Adolf Hitler was the greatest political leader of all time,” said Robert “Azzmador” Ray in one of numerous videos from August 11 and 12. Ray  worked for the racist and antisemitic website The Daily Stormer, and hasn’t shown up for the trial. He’s also one of several defendants who have been sanctioned in the case for failure to comply with discovery, and he’s a fugitive on two warrants, one from the August 11 torch rally and another for failure to comply with a court order last year. 

In September, a federal judge sanctioned Ray by authenticating evidence that established as fact multiple allegations, including that Ray “entered into an agreement with one or more co-conspirators to engage in racially motivated violence in Charlottesville, Virginia,” on the weekend of the Unite the Right rally. Ray “was motivated by animus against racial minorities, Jewish people, and their supporters when conspiring to engage in acts of intimidation and violence,” the evidence shows.

In the videos, Ray is seen participating in the torch rally and spewing antisemitic vitriol near the now-removed statue of Robert E. Lee in downtown Charlottesville.

The plaintiffs presented extensive evidence from the Discord web platform showing Ray’s communications with other white nationalists in the months leading up to the rally.

“Our guys need to get a grip on the fact that they’re probably going to have to physically fight these people,” Ray wrote on August 7, less than a week before the rally.

Ray’s other posts expressed his hatred of Jewish and Black people and his desire to inflict physical harm.

“I just got done with an hourslong chat with some of the event organizers,” Ray wrote. “The plan is the same. Gas the kikes.”

The plaintiffs used the white nationalists’ Discord posts to lay the groundwork for conspiracy. In an August 7 post, Ray wrote, “This shit is incredibly complex. In the last three days, I must have spent 50 hours networking with various groups.” 

Other witnesses on Wednesday included Diane D’Costa, a UVA graduate who moved into a room on the Lawn on August 11, 2017, hours before the white nationalists arrived with torches.

“In my young adulthood, I really stepped into my Jewish identity,” said D’Costa, who recalled being terrified as she peered through the peephole in her door that night and saw the torch marchers chanting “Jews will not replace us” mere feet away. 

She removed jewelry with Jewish symbolism and flipped over a painting with Israeli flags before accepting an invitation from a professor to take refuge in a nearby Pavilion residence. 

“I was scared for my life,” testified D’Costa, who said her grandmother fled the Nazis in Poland during World War II. “My chest started tightening up and there was ringing in my ears. I was in shock of what was happening and trying to process what was going on.”

On cross-examination, Cantwell again had the most questions from the defense, asking D’Costa about the distance of the flames and about her lack of access to a bathroom in her Lawn room. The historic rooms are offered as an honor to a small number of fourth-year students, who must leave their rooms to use a shared bathroom, D’Costa explained, prompting a sarcastic response from Cantwell.

“That’s harrowing,” he said.

In what may have been the most surreal exchange of the day, Cantwell also cross-examined one of the nation’s leading experts in holocaust denial.

“There’s a template of charges that you find, if not all of them, in present antisemitic rhetoric,” said Deborah Lipstadt, a professor at Emory University who has authored numerous books and peer-reviewed articles on antisemitism and holocaust denial.

Those charges, she said, include Jewish people having “inordinate financial power,” being “clever, conniving, crafty,” “controlling a large portion of society,” and finally, “being the devil,” working to harm the public for their own benefit.

“Antisemitism is ubiquitous,” she said, noting the logical fallacy of holocaust denial.

“For someone who believes in the ‘holo-hoax’ or holocaust denial, for them to be right, who would have to be wrong,” Lipstadt said. “All the survivors, all the survivors who lived in the towns and villages near the camps, who smelled the burning flesh. The thousands of historians, and finally the Germans themselves. There has never been a war crimes trial where a Nazi war criminal has said it didn’t happen.”

Cantwell also asked Lipstadt about antisemitic humor.

“Is it your opinion that there’s no such thing as an innocent racist joke,” he asked.

“As an expert in antisemitism and in hate generally, I would say yes,” Lipstadt replied.

“If someone were going to make a joke about the Jewish people, would the holocaust be an easy target,” Cantwell followed up.

“I find it hard to imagine using a genocide that killed six million people a topic for jokes,” she replied.

The final evidence on Wednesday was a video deposition of Elliott Kline, who helped plan the rally as a member of Identity Evropa.

Kline, who used the name Eli Mosley at the time of Unite the Right, admitted he may have referred to himself as evil “as a joke,” and described working with Jason Kessler to organize the rally, even though the two had different goals for the event.

“He really wanted to focus locally,” said Kline. “We were kind of focused on other areas, and he really wanted to focus on Charlottesville.”

Court will resume Thursday morning with the remainder of Kline’s videotaped deposition.

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”

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.

By the start of the seventh day in court Tuesday, three witnesses had taken the stand, and Sines v. Kessler plaintiffs’ attorney Roberta Kaplan worried that at this rate, the four-week trial would go beyond November 19.

Federal Judge Norman Moon also apparently had concerns. “We spent a lot of time with the witness saying the same thing,” he said. “We don’t need to do that eight times.”

Plaintiff Devin Willis testified Monday and spent 90 minutes on direct questioning, said Kaplan, while he was cross-examined for five hours.

Part of the issue is the sheer size of the civil lawsuit, in which nine plaintiffs allege that two dozen organizers of the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally conspired to commit racial violence. The handful of defense attorneys, as well as the defendants who are representing themselves, all get to cross-examine the witnesses—and some of them like to talk a lot. On top of that, the plaintiffs have listed 31 witnesses.

Much of the day was spent with defendant Matthew Heimbach, head of the Traditionalist Worker Party in 2017, on the stand. The court has already sanctioned Heimbach for failing to turn over evidence during discovery. Heimbach blamed his ex-wife for destroying his electronic devices and deleting his social media accounts.

Heimbach says he was “partially inspired” by Hitler and that at some events, followers would exclaim, “Heil Heimbach.”

Defense attorney Josh Smith objected to the descriptor “Nazi salute,” and informed the court it was actually a Roman salute. He also objected to the use of “white supremacist,” and Moon asked plaintiffs’ attorney Karen Dunn to use “a non-perjorative like white nationalist.”

Exhibits showed that neo-Nazis planned the Unite the Right rally on a Discord server called Charlottesville 2.0. The Traditionalist Worker Party had its own server, where Heimbach called for the “total destruction of Jewry.”

A defense attorney objected to the number of exhibits and Smith asked why Dunn referred to a February 14, 2018, post as “Valentine’s day.”

At that point Moon observed, “I think [Heimbach] has established his feelings toward Jewish people.”

The exhibits showed that organizer Jason Kessler and Heimbach discussed the white polo shirt and khakis dress code, and that Kessler worried about KKK members showing up in robes.

In his deposition, Heimbach said Trad Workers had their own dress code: all black, because “black is a good color to hide blood. Blood on white polos is not a good look.”

On the stand, he said there were multiple reasons his group wore all black.

Heimbach invited two skinhead groups, known to be violent, to Unite the Right, said Dunn. “I said they were rough around the edges,” countered Heimbach, who added the groups were supposed to act as a deterrent to antifascists.

Heimbach and his best friend and codefendant Matthew Parrott, whose ex-wife Heimbach married, formed the Nationalist Front with the League of the South, the National Socialist Movement, and Vanguard America. The Front’s webpage described itself as “an alliance among organizations committed to the struggle for white nationalism.”

Dunn asked about the Trad Workers’ shields and helmets. Heimbach said that 12 transparent shields were police surplus and that some of the helmets his followers wore were actually hard hats.

On video from August 12, 2017, Heimbach is seen marching down Market Street with League of the South leaders Michael Hill and Michael Tubbs. A Discord post said that the allies may have to remove “commies from Lee Park,” as Market Street Park was then called.

Heimbach looks at the camera and says, “Just another day in the park,” before ordering, “Shields up.” The group surges forward, swinging shields at a female counterprotester while a Trad Worker is seen stabbing at counterprotesters with a rolled up flag.

The defense objected to the use of the word “stabbing,” and Heimbach said he can’t see clearly enough to say anything but that the man “used a flagpole vigorously.”

In the course of Dunn’s questioning, she said “strike that” multiple times when Heimbach went into lengthy explanations to yes/no questions. When asked if he couldn’t identify a Trad Worker marching with him because of his goggles, Heimbach responded, “Yes, because he might be pepper sprayed by antifascists.”

Dunn asked if Heimbach knew who DeAndre Harris, the counterprotester brutally beaten in the Market Street Garage, was. Heimbach answered, “He’s the man who viciously attacked a man on the street.”

By midafternoon, when Heimbach answered a question, “yes, because…” Moon interjected, “Please don’t say why.”

Moon also seemed to lose patience with defense attorney Smith, who asked to show a video of Harris before he was beaten. “This is not a law school,” Moon snapped. “Don’t ask me little questions.”

From Heimbach, jurors learned that the right wasn’t quite united. “Identity Evropa and the Traditionalist Worker Party had a fraught relationship,” said Heimbach, describing his group as working class, while IE was more “boat shoes, bougie types.”

Defendants Elliott Kline, aka Eli Mosley, and Nathan Damigo were Identity Evropa leaders.  

Alt-right leader Richard Spencer, acting as his own attorney, asked Heimbach how he viewed Spencer. Heimbach said it was complicated. “I kind of always viewed you as a bit of a dandy,” and said Spencer was not someone he would rely upon.

Defendants in the conspiracy case have tried to distance themselves from each other—despite Moon telling jurors conspirators don’t have to know each other. Heimbach said he’d had maybe one conversation with Spencer and they talked about their families. He also professed to barely know Kessler, Kline, and “Crying Nazi” Christopher Cantwell, another pro se defendant. Heimbach appeared on Cantwell’s “Radical Agenda” podcast.

Imagery of a car plowing into protesters continues to come up in the trial. Dunn introduced a post from Heimbach that read, “Leftist protesters blocking the road with weapons, threats, and violence making you fear for your life. #HitTheGas.”

Heimbach cited Reginald Denny, who was pulled from his truck during the 1992 Los Angeles riots after the cops who beat Rodney King were acquitted, and said, “You have no duty or responsibility for being beaten in your own car.”

James Fields struck four of the plaintiffs when he accelerated down Fourth Street, and he was convicted of the murder of Heather Heyer.

The day began with former Identity Evropa member Samantha Froelich’s videoed deposition. Froelich lived with Kline in Greenville, South Carolina, and in Leesburg, and she elaborated on his and Spencer’s hatred of Jews. She was at Charlottesville 1.0, the white supremacists’ first foray with tiki torches here in May 2017, where she was “physically intimate” with Spencer, she said.

Kline called himself an “un-ironic exterminationist,” she said. He worked for an exterminator and said “he wished he was killing Jews instead of cockroaches,” she testified. When asked how often he said this, she replied, “Every day.”

The use of torches harkened to an aesthetic the alt-right liked. It was “the easiest way to look intimidating,” said Froelich.

Kline, she said, saw Unite the Right as the start of RaHoWa, which stands for “racial holy war.”

She said, “It was his chance to lead white people into battle.”

According to Froelich, Kline said right-wing death squads would be at the rally. And at alt-right parties at Spencer’s Alexandria house, attendees discussed what sort of weapons they could bring to Charlottesville that wouldn’t look like weapons, such as a flagpole with a knife hidden in it, she testified.

Froelich did not attend Unite the Right. “I was afraid there would be violence.”

She left Identify Evropa and the alt-right in October 2017, and now works with an organization called Life After Hate. “I do try to help people who leave,” she said.

The trial continues Wednesday with Cantwell’s cross-examination of Heimbach, and “it’s definitely going to take more than 13 minutes,” Cantwell told the judge.

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

Each day, we’ll have the latest news from the courtroom in the Sines v. Kessler Unite the Right trial. For coverage from previous days, check the list of links at the bottom of this page.

The second week of the Sines v. Kessler trial opened with a spectacle that will be repeated in coming days: a victim of Unite the Right sharing heart-wrenching testimony, then facing cross examination from two of the white nationalists accused in the lawsuit of conspiring to commit racially motivated violence that weekend in August 2017.

“It was mostly a blur,” UVA graduate Devin Willis testified on Monday, remembering the days following Unite the Right. “I threw myself into overdrive, wasn’t sleeping, busy, trying to find something to do to make sense out of what happened that weekend. It’s such a blur. I entered a bad place.”

Willis is one of nine plaintiffs in the case, and is the second of 31 expected witnesses for the plaintiffs’ side. Now 23 and living in Mexico City, Willis was one of a small group of UVA students surrounded by torch-bearing white nationalists at the Thomas Jefferson statue in front of UVA’s Rotunda on August 11, 2017. The next day, he counterprotested in downtown Charlottesville and arrived at the scene of the car attack on Fourth and Water streets soon after his friend and fellow plaintiff Natalie Romero had been taken to the hospital.

Willis, who had finished his first year at UVA in the summer of 2017, previously testified that he’d been an enthusiastic overachiever when he arrived at college. Raised by a single mother who’d relocated from Detroit to the D.C. area to provide her son better educational opportunities, Willis, who is Black, had thrived academically and socially. He graduated in the top 5 percent of his high school class, was active in student government, and was elected homecoming king. At UVA, that pattern continued as he threw himself into academics and joined multiple organizations including the Black Student Alliance.

In the immediate weeks after Unite the Right, Willis said he became manic, searching for meaning in the violence he’d experienced and witnessed. That burst of energy didn’t last. His grades plummeted, he said, and he withdrew from groups and commitments.

“Interpersonally, I stopped being an outgoing, sociable person. I became very suspicious of people, withdrawn. Not present. Constantly distracted, getting flashbacks. I felt I couldn’t relate to anyone around me anymore. It was such a lonely time.”

The plaintiffs’ first witness, Willis’ friend and fellow plaintiff Natalie Romero, was critically injured in the August 12 car attack. During her cross examination on Friday, the defense was relatively gentle, offering their condolences and primarily asking her if she remembered seeing any of the defendants at the Friday night  torch rally or the following day.

Willis, who described being knocked down while counterprotesting on that Saturday but was not struck by James Fields’ car, faced more aggressive questioning under cross examination. He spent about three hours being grilled by Richard Spencer and Christopher Cantwell, the two white nationalist defendants who are representing themselves in court.

“How and why did you choose to go to the base of the Jefferson statue?” Spencer asked Willis of his group’s decision to leave a spaghetti dinner at a professor’s house on that Friday night. “Did they have direct knowledge of a logistical map of the torchlight rally?”

“I think you guys are well known for liking statues,” Willis replied.

During his testimony, Willis expressed his fear from the Friday night rally that his picture might be taken and that his personal information might be spread online, in an attempt to intimidate him. The tactic is called doxxing. 

Spencer noted that Willis spoke with his face uncovered at a counterprotest in McGuffey Park on Saturday, where attendees were posting pictures and videos online.

“You weren’t really that afraid of doxxing,” Spencer pressed.

“In both instances, I didn’t have any control over who’s recording,” said Willis. “In one instance, it made more sense to be afraid.”

Spencer interrogated Willis about certain counterprotesting chants Willis had participated in on Saturday, including, “The people united will never be divided.”

“Is there a political component to that,” Spencer asked. “Will never be divided? What if someone wants to be divided?”

“People are better versions of themselves and they are stronger when they are in community,” Willis said calmly. 

Cantwell, popularly known as “the crying Nazi,” followed Spencer in cross examining Willis. He focused on Willis’ claim that it may have been Cantwell himself who pepper sprayed him that evening. 

“Before today, did you tell anyone that you choked on Christopher Cantwell’s pepper spray? They didn’t ask you about that,” Cantwell said in a sarcastic tone. “In June 2020, if somebody said, do you know who Christopher Cantwell is, you’d have said no?”

“I don’t know when I became aware of you,” Willis said.

“When were you approached about this lawsuit?” Cantwell countered.

“I became a plaintiff in October 2017. I hardly remember the time period,” said Willis.

“I can’t help but notice that you say, ‘I can’t remember’ a lot. Is everything okay?” Cantwell asked with faux concern.

“No, everything is not okay,” said Willis.

Attorneys for the other white nationalist defendants used cross examination to suggest Willis wasn’t only counterprotesting with other UVA students.  

“Do you see that red flag in the background with a sickle,” asked Bryan Jones, attorney for defendants Michael Tubbs, Michael Hill, and League of the South, showing Willis a portion of cell phone video that Willis shot on Saturday.

“I can’t tell if that’s a sickle,” said Willis. 

“You didn’t realize that there were communist supporters among the counterprotesters?

“I wasn’t really paying attention at the time,” Willis replied.

“See this person with a red bandana,” Jones said, pointing to another counterprotester visible in Willis’ video. “You didn’t recognize that as a symbol of antifa?”

“No, I didn’t,” said Willis. 

Willis’ cross examination ended by mid-afternoon on Monday, and plaintiffs’ next evidence was a videotaped deposition of 30-year-old Samantha Froelich, a former member of the white nationalist group and Sines v. Kessler defendant Identity Evropa.

In the video, Froelich, who has long red hair and was dressed in black, said she joined the group to please an ex-boyfriend. She has since denounced the hateful ideology and recalled Identity Evropa founder and lawsuit defendant Eli Mosley’s discussions of “right wing death squads,” which Mosley said would be coming to Charlottesville for Unite the Right. 

Froelich said Mosley, whose real name is Elliott Kline, considered Black people to be “subhuman,” and often talked about finishing Hitler’s “final solution” by exterminating the Jews.

“He would talk about it with glee,” Froelich said. “He was very excited at the prospect of killing Jewish people. She said Mosley also used the phrase “RaHoWa,” an acronym for racial holy war. Froelich explained it means “a physical violent confrontation between white people and every other race.”

Froelich’s videotaped testimony will continue on Tuesday.

Previous Sines v. Kessler coverage

Pre-trial: Their day in court: Major lawsuit against Unite the Right neo-Nazis heads to trial

Day one, 10/25: Trial kicks off with jury selection

Day two, 10/26: Desperately seeking jury

Day three, 10/27: Jury selection wraps up

Day four, 10/28: Plaintiffs and defendants make their opening arguments

Day five, 10/29: “I hear it in my nightmares,” says plaintiff Romero

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.

On the fifth day of the Sines v. Kessler trial, plaintiffs’ attorneys brought to the stand two former UVA students. Natalie Romero and Devin Willis are among the nine plaintiffs in the case. They both counterprotested at the Friday night torch rally on UVA Grounds and at the Unite the Right rally the following day in August 2017. 

Romero took the stand first. She described the fear of that weekend and the injuries she suffered in the August 12 car attack. Later, after a grueling and emotional three hours of testimony in the morning, Romero also faced cross examination from Christopher Cantwell and Richard Spencer, the two defendants representing themselves, whom she and her fellow plaintiffs accuse of conspiring to commit racially motivated violence that permanently scarred her.  

“I just heard loudness. Almost like thunder. Like the earth was growling, essentially,” Romero recalled of the moments before the racist mob arrived at the Thomas Jefferson statue, where she was huddled with a group of about 15 fellow UVA students. 

Now 24, Romero said she could make out the mob’s chants, including “blood and soil” and “white power,” as the angry group approached. 

“There’s another one I hate repeating,” said Romero, who sobbed at times on the stand. “I hear it in my nightmares. I literally hear the same cadence to the ‘You will not replace us.’ That one was just so terrifying.”

A Houston, Texas, native, Romero said she was the first in her family to attend college, and came to the University of Virginia on multiple scholarships. In addition to ROTC, she was part of the Posse program, which provides students from low-income families special advisors before and during their time at UVA, and creates a cohort to provide support. 

She had completed an internship working on environmental issues that summer, and was in high spirits as she returned to Charlottesville from a road trip to Houston that Friday. 

“I took my last selfie of my face without what it looks like now,” she said, referencing scars on her face and body that resulted from the August 12 car attack. “Then I met up with friends, and we had dinner together.”

When Romero’s dinner group learned that the white nationalists were planning to march to UVA that night, she and two friends, including fellow plaintiff Willis, headed to the Thomas Jefferson statue in front of the Rotunda. Willis also testified about his terror as the mob of white nationalists arrived.

“This ocean of light and flames starts spilling over both sides of the steps,” said Willis, recalling the xenophobic chanting.

“They rush the entire area and surround all of us in a matter of seconds,” he said.

Like Romero, Willis had also just completed his first year at UVA in the summer of 2017. He was a member of the Black Student Alliance and recalled being targeted by the mob at the statue. Men sprayed his feet with lighter fluid and threw lit torches towards him. 

“I thought their strategy was going to be to burn us alive,” he said. 

Both Romero and Willis were eventually able to escape and rinse mace from their eyes.

Despite the terror of that night, the former students testified that they were not deterred from heading to downtown Charlottesville the following morning for a planned counterprotest of the Unite the Right rally.

“I figured because it was nighttime, that’s why they felt they could do that. Well, there aren’t going to be torches tomorrow,” Romero explained. “I wanted to be there for the community and with the community.”

Willis said he expected the Unite the Right rally to be similar to the July 8, 2017, KKK rally in Court Square Park, which he had attended and which did not end in violence. He had helped organize a peaceful counterprotest on Saturday, August 12, through a People’s Action for Racial Justice committee.

“I wasn’t in a negative mood,” Willis said. “I thought the day still had the potential to be good and peaceful.”

But worse was to come. 

Both witnesses recounted the unforgettable scenes of that day: armed white nationalists gathering in downtown Charlottesville, carrying Confederate flags and shields, wearing T-shirts with swastikas and images of Hitler.

As violence began to erupt near Market Street Park, Romero saw a group of white women and joined hands with them. 

“Honestly, I’m in this line thinking, ‘I’m okay. Why would they be violent to a group of women that are doing nothing? Especially, I’m with white women. I‘m a light-skinned Latina, not that many shades deeper.”

Groups of men still singled her out, she said.

“I got spit on by people who hate me and think I should not be alive and that I threaten their existence,” she said, her voice rising and cracking with emotion. “I’m just trying to go to school, man. I’m just trying to get out of poverty.”

Willis also had a violent encounter with Unite the Right protesters on Saturday, when his group of counterprotesters was assaulted by what he described as a militia brigade of older men.

“They eventually knock everybody down,” Willis said. “I am a nonviolent person, so I fled.”

When news reached the counterprotesters that the rally had been technically canceled by emergency order before it officially began, Romero joined the celebratory group of counterprotesters that would eventually have a fatal encounter with James Fields and his Dodge Charger on Fourth Street.

As Romero’s group rounded the corner from Water Street to Fourth Street, the impact of Fields’ car came without warning, she said.

“The next thing I know is just darkness. You know in the movies when it’s like beeeeep…. Bmm bmmm… I could hear my heart beating,” Romero said. “Like war scenes where they were just hit, and it’s just flashing.”

Dunn showed the jury photos of Romero soon after the impact, appearing dazed, her face and arms covered in blood. She suffered a fractured skull, damage to her teeth, and severe abrasions on her face and body that have left scars. 

“My confidence was destroyed,” Romero said, describing the impact of her injuries, which forced her to withdraw from school for a semester and left her with chronic headaches and vision problems. “I can live with my scars. I have to. But I hate it.”

On cross examination, attorneys for defendants, including Jason Kessler, expressed condolences for Romero and kept their questions brief, asking mostly if she could recall seeing specific defendants that Friday night on UVA Grounds or on Saturday at the rally. 

“I’m not sure,” Romero answered repeatedly.

The two defendants representing themselves in the case, Spencer and Cantwell, were more aggressive in their cross examinations, and Romero was forced to engage directly with two of the men she and the other plaintiffs have accused.  

“So you wanted to seek out the protesters, is what I understand,” Spencer asked. “You wanted to see a spectacle of some kind or get your word in?” 

“In no way did I want to meet protesters,” Romero responded calmly, noting she is a history buff and believed the events unfolding would be historic. “I wanted to see it with my own eyes.”

“When the car incident occurred, did you believe I was responsible or involved,” Spencer asked.

“I can’t say,” said Romero.

Cantwell’s cross examination was more broad. He peppered Romero with questions about her source of information about the torch march, and asked about the names  of other counterprotesters. He also asked her opinions on both the Robert E. Lee monument and Thomas Jefferson owning enslaved people.  

“I think it was terrible that it was put up at a time to intimidate people,” Romero responded to Cantwell’s query about the Lee monument.

“As a university student, we learn all about the history of Charlottesville and UVA. I hate the history that TJ and UVA has,” Romero said, making direct eye contact with Cantwell as she responded. 

Willis had not finished his testimony when court ended on Friday. The trial will resume 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

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.

With a jury finally seated, opening statements began Thursday in Sines v. Kessler, the lawsuit filed by nine locals against organizers of the 2017 Unite the Right rally. 

Plaintiffs’ attorneys laid out their case that the two dozen defendants conspired to commit violence when they came to Charlottesville. The defendants’ attorneys—and two defendants who are representing themselves—contended that the case was an issue of free speech, and no matter how hate-filled their speech is, it’s protected.

Before the lawyers started talking, Judge Norman Moon instructed the jury on conspiracy, which he said is an unlawful partnership among those who have an unlawful objective—even if they don’t know each other. “By its very nature, conspiracy is clandestine and covert,” he said. Plaintiffs may use circumstantial evidence, he added.

It was an emotional day for the plaintiffs, who were in the federal courtroom for the first time since the trial began Monday. 

Plaintiffs’ attorney Karen Dunn played videos from the tiki-torch march through UVA grounds on August 11, when the ralliers chanted “Jews will not replace us.” She also showed footage of James Fields accelerating his Dodge Challenger into a crowd of counterprotesters. Initially the sound wasn’t working, and she called for a pause. “We think it’s important that the jury be able to hear as well as see,” she said. (The press was unable to see anything from the video feed during the plaintiffs’ opening.)

Dunn promised the jury they’d see lots of evidence, and indeed, the plaintiffs’ attorneys have filed a 54-page list of the exhibits they plan to introduce, and have named 31 witnesses.

She showed a message alt-right leader Richard Spencer wrote: “We have entered a world of political violence.” Organizer Jason Kessler wrote to Spencer, “We’re raising an army my liege, for freedom of speech and the cracking of heads if necessary.”

And then there’s the cache of documents Unicorn Riot leaked from Discord’s Charlottesville 2.0 server, with chat rooms where many of the defendants planned Unite the Right. They discussed using shields, pepper spray, and flagpoles as weapons with “plausible deniability,” she said. They called pepper spray “gas.” Dunn warned the jury that “gas the kikes” was something it would hear a lot in this case.

“The defendants never expected their planning to see the light of day—or the inside of a courtroom,” said Dunn. 

Attorney Roberta Kaplan told the jury what the plaintiffs were doing that weekend. UVA students Natalie Romero and Devin Willis, then 20 and 18, joined the 30 or so students August 11 at the Thomas Jefferson statue. They heard the chants, they saw the Rotunda lit up by torch light, and they were terrified, said Kaplan. The students linked arms and were surrounded by hundreds of neo-Nazis, who screamed at them, pepper sprayed them, and kicked them. “Devin thought he was literally going to die,” she said.

On August 12, Romero and Willis headed to Emancipation Park (now Market Street Park), and were sprayed and assaulted once again, said Kaplan. Romero was thrown on the hood of a car. “Tragically that was not the only contact Natalie had with a car that day.”

Many of the plaintiffs joined a celebratory group marching down Water Street. Chelsea Alvarado was beating a large blue drum strapped across her chest. April Muniz wanted to document what was happening. Marcus Martin and his fiancee Marissa Blair marched with their friend Heather Heyer. Thomas Baker had recently moved to Charlottesville and wanted to show support for his new community.

Martin, Romero, Alvarado, and Baker were all hit by Fields’ car. Kaplan showed an image of Alvarado’s drum near Romero’s blood. 

Martin’s shoe came off and was lodged in the grill of the Charger. “These are the shoes,” said Kaplan, holding them up. “Shoes are stronger than human body parts.”

She said, “The evidence you see will be overwhelming. By the end of trial it will be clear the defendants conspired to commit violence.”

Not surprisingly, the defense disagreed. 

Attorney James Kolenich, who represents Kessler, Nathan Damigo, and Identity Evropa, told the jury that antifa, who don’t like Kessler, fascists, and neo-Nazis, were a big part of the case. “No one likes fascists or Nazis,” he acknowledged. “In many cases the defendants aren’t likable people.”

Kessler, he said, “did not know someone would come from out of town with a car.” 

Spencer, who was seen coming into court with a stuffed animal he called his “emotional support animal,” is representing himself. He stressed that he was an invited guest to the Unite the Right rally and had no hand in the planning. Some of the evidence, he conceded, such as a racist rant he made after the rally, would be embarrassing. ”I said things that were shameful and that I might never live down.”

He invoked retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and poet Robert Burns, and was interrupted three times by Moon, who told him to stick to the facts and not get into arguments.

Radical Agenda podcaster Chris “Crying Nazi” Cantwell, the other pro se defendant, urged Republicans to “stop fearing accusations of racism,” mentioned Mein Kampf, and disputed that all men are created equally.

“Tell the jury about your defense,” instructed Moon.

Cantwell told the jury that he’s an entertainer and he’d like to make the plaintiffs laugh. He said he was fired from a broadcast job for using the n-word. “My mouth gets me in trouble.” He is in jail now because he “threatened a Nazi who threatened a woman I wanted to marry.” He informed jurors three times that he is smart. 

With a bit of prescience, Cantwell said he wore a body camera to the Unite the Right rally because he knew if he went to court, “I’d be a profoundly unsympathetic defendant.”

He urged the jury to send a message to “violent communists” and said that “calling someone a racist isn’t an excuse to abuse the legal system and take a month out of your life.” The trial is scheduled to run four weeks.

Attorney Eddie ReBrook, who was taken to the emergency room earlier in the week, told the jury that he wasn’t going to try to humanize the defendants. “You won’t emerge from this trial liking the defendants.”

He represents the National Socialist Movement, its former head Jeff Schoep, and the Nationalist Front, and called his clients some of the most “notorious” in the case. They had nothing to do with the torch march or James Fields, he said, noting that it was better to keep Nazis out in the open. 

Once again, Moon reminded him jurors must make a decision based on the evidence.

ReBrook told jurors, “Don’t let lawyers from out of state come down to violate the First Amendment.” 

That drew a complaint from Kaplan, who is from New York.

ReBrook then quoted Nazi-killer Brad Pitt in Inglorious Basterds.

An exasperated Moon responded, “Mr. ReBrook, I don’t know why you don’t understand. Jurors only look at the evidence.” The ramifications of the trial have nothing to do with their verdict, nor is the court the place to send a message, said the judge.

Attorney Josh Smith, who represents Matthew Heimbach, Matthew Parrott, and the Traditionalist Worker Party, continued the argument that his clients were not involved in a conspiracy and that the case was a free speech issue. He said the defendants had a permit for the Unite the Right rally, while counterprotesters did not. “There’s no right to counterprotest,” he said.

“Counterprotesters do not need a permit to be there,” said Moon. “Other persons had a right to protest. I’ve ruled. It’s over. Move on to another matter.”

The trial continues Friday with the plaintiffs’ first witnesses.

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

Correction, 10/29: An earlier version misspelled Chelsea Alvarado’s name.

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.

It took two-and-a-half days to find 12 people who said they could be impartial jurors in a lawsuit against many of the country’s most notorious white supremacists. By early afternoon on Wednesday, presiding Judge Norman K. Moon announced a jury had been empaneled in Sines v. Kessler. 

The civil case brought by nine plaintiffs accuses more than two dozen hate groups and individuals responsible for the Unite the Right rally of conspiring to commit violence during the weekend of August 11 and 12, 2017. The trial is taking place in federal court in downtown Charlottesville, and the nature of the suit makes it unsurprising that nearly every prospective juror questioned during the process known as voir dire was asked about racism.

“Do you have any views if white people can be victims of racism,” Moon asked one prospective juror, a white man, on Wednesday morning.

“It could happen, but I think that, proportionally speaking, the historical and the incidents of racism against minorities is… significantly greater than what may happen to white people,” replied the man, who became one of the 12 final jury members.

Being personally impacted by the Unite the Right rally was another issue for some prospective jurors. 

One, a white man, said he’d been forced to close his business near the Downtown Mall for the weekend of the Unite the Right rally. His business shuttered for good in 2018, and he admitted to being biased against the defendants.

“I didn’t agree with why they felt the statues should stay,” he said, referring to the controversy over Confederate monuments that was the basis of the Unite the Right rally.

The defense asked the court to strike the former downtown business owner from the prospective jury pool.

“He’s basically in the same position as the plaintiffs,” argued Cincinnati-based attorney James Kolenich for the defense. “It’s clear who he blames for that injury. I don’t think he can be fair and impartial.”

Moon eventually agreed, and the man was released from jury service.

Later, the defendants objected to the candidacy of another potential juror, a Black man. In response, the attorneys for the plaintiffs disputed the objection, using a legal argument called a Batson challenge—the plaintiffs’ attorneys claimed the exclusion was based on his race, which would violate his equal rights under the Constitution.

The defense pointed out that there were multiple other Black jurors to whom they hadn’t objected, and noted that all the jurors eliminated by the plaintiffs were white. Attorneys for the plaintiffs countered, saying that argument was insufficient to allow the Black juror’s elimination from the jury pool.

“The Fourth Circuit squarely held that striking one Black juror violates that juror’s equal protection rights. It’s a right that the juror possesses as well, to not have his own equal protection rights violated,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Karen Dunn.

It was arguments by Christopher Cantwell and Richard Spencer, both of whom are representing themselves, that seemed to sway Moon’s opinion. Both Spencer and Cantwell claimed it wasn’t the man’s race they objected to but his demeanor.

“I’m a professional talk radio host. I talk and listen for a living,” said Cantwell. “I detected deception in the man’s voice.”

“I am convinced that he was, in his own mind, nobly lying in order to serve on the jury. That’s my opinion. I might be wrong or I might be right. I have a right to make a discretionary decision,” said Spencer. 

“Mr. Spencer gave his reasons for assessment of juror’s credibility. I do not find that the juror was being dishonest or evasive, but from Mr. Spencer’s and Mr. Cantwell’s viewpoints, I can see how they could arrive at the opinions that they did,” said Moon, denying the plaintiffs’ Batson motion to restore the Black juror to the jury pool.

With the 12-member jury seated by early afternoon, Moon convened court to give counsel for plaintiffs and defense time to prepare for opening statements on Thursday 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