Grand jury indicts torch-wielding marchers from 2017 incident in Charlottesville [View all]
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch
Nearly six years after marching across the Grounds of the University of Virginia carrying flaming torches and shouting phrases including “Blood and soil” and “Jews will not replace us,” some of those marchers appear to have been hit with felony indictments for violating Virginia law against burning to intimidate.
“These indictments were issued as part of a criminal investigation that is active and ongoing,” Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Hingeley said in a statement announcing the actions by an Albemarle County grand jury, which has jurisdiction over UVa’s Central Grounds. Hingeley, who declined to respond to inquiries on Monday from The Daily Progress, did not name the criminal suspects or say how many there were.
Likewise, Albemarle Circuit Court clerk Jon Zug was tight-lipped about the charges, which he said were sealed. “I cannot release sealed indictments until I’ve gotten confirmation that the people have been served,” Zug told The Daily Progress. “At that time, I’ll be able the release the names.”
Ever since the Unite the Right rally-turned-riot on Aug. 12, 2017, which brought hordes of neo-Nazis and neo-Confederates onto the streets of Charlottesville and claimed the life of anti-racist counter-protester Heather Heyer, there have been efforts to punish the racists. The murder conviction of James Alex Fields Jr., the Ohio man who struck Heyer with his Dodge Challenger, was not widely controversial. But the question of whether to criminally charge the torch-bearing marchers who traveled to Grounds the day before has proved more divisive.
Read more: https://richmond.com/news/state-and-regional/crime-and-courts/grand-jury-indicts-torch-wielding-marchers-from-2017-incident-in-charlottesville/article_5351d887-7ecd-5578-b5a9-49913fceb180.html
Good.
From WaPo (some names that were just unsealed) -
By Salvador Rizzo
April 18, 2023 at 5:16 p.m. EDT
At least three men who marched with blazing tiki torches at the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville are now facing criminal charges, according to indictments unsealed this week.
A grand jury in Virginia indicted “multiple individuals” who carried torches at the Unite the Right rally in August 2017, Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney James Hingeley said in a statement.
Indictments had been unsealed Tuesday for three defendants who were extradited from their home states: Tyler Bradley Dykes of Bluffton, S.C.; Dallas Medina of Ravenna, Ohio; and Will Zachary Smith of Nacona, Tex. Officials said additional indictments remain under seal.
Prosecutors allege the torch carriers violated a rarely enforced criminal statute, which makes it a crime to burn objects with intent to intimidate, when they marched around the University of Virginia campus on Aug. 11, 2017, while chanting “You will not replace us” and the Nazi slogan “Blood and soil.”
(snip)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/04/18/charlottesville-white-supremacist-tiki-torch-indictments/
= new reply since forum marked as read