Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Court orders defendants in Charlottesville neo-Nazi lawsuit to pay nearly $5 million for legal costs

The finding adds to the burden for the mostly bankrupt crew of extremists

(JTA) — The organizers of the deadly neo-Nazi Charlottesville rally in 2017 have been ordered to pay close to $5 million to plaintiffs for legal costs in a lawsuit, adding to the penalties already facing the mostly bankrupt crew of extremists.

The rally organizers were sued later in 2017 by Charlottesville residents who suffered trauma and injuries because of the deadly riots. The $4.91 million for lawyers fees and other expenses incurred by the plaintiffs is substantially less than the $13 million they sought, but adds to the debt that will likely follow the defendants for the rest of their lives.

In his decision released Tuesday, Magistrate Joel Hoppe cited the massive amount of research that the plaintiffs’ legal team put into establishing that a conspiracy led to the deadly violence in the Virginia college town.

“Fact discovery in this case was complex, expansive, and voluminous,” Hoppe wrote. “When Plaintiffs filed this lawsuit in October 2017, the world had seen and heard reports of the torch march, overtly racist and antisemitic chants, and violent clashes in Charlottesville a few months earlier. But ‘[t]he world had not yet seen or heard about the planning and coordination that enabled the conflagration’,” he added, quoting a filing by the plaintiffs.

The legal team used message exchanges between the conspirators, among other sources.

In January, the judge in the case, Norman Moon, slashed the $26 million a jury awarded plaintiffs last year to $2.35 million, basing his ruling on a Virginia law that caps punitive damages at $350,000. The amount was nonetheless burdensome to an array of groups and individuals who have said that they were broke.

The lawyers were funded by a nonprofit set up to litigate the case, Integrity First for America, and by donations.

“The impact of this case will be felt for years to come,” Amy Spitalnick, the executive director of Integrity First for America, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Not just on the defendants who continue to face major financial, operational, and legal consequences for their actions, but also in the broader fight against extremism as it serves as a model for accountability.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.