Avowed White Supremacist Gets Life Sentence in Car Attack

Avowed White Supremacist Gets Life Sentence in Car Attack
James Alex Fields Jr. of Maumee, Ohio. (Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail via Getty Images)

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.—An avowed white supremacist who drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters during a white supremacist rally in Virginia was sentenced to life in prison Friday on hate crime charges.

James Alex Fields Jr. of Maumee, Ohio, had pleaded guilty in March to the 2017 attack that killed one person and injured more than two dozen others in exchange for prosecutors dropping their request for the death penalty. His attorneys asked for a sentence less than life. He will be sentenced next month on separate state charges.

James Alex Fields Jr., (L) is seen attending the rally in Emancipation Park before being arrested by police in Charlottesville
James Alex Fields Jr., (L) is seen attending the rally in Emancipation Park before being arrested by police in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 12, 2017. (Reuters/Eze Amos/File Photo)

Before the judge handed down his sentence, Fields, accompanied by one of his lawyers, walked to a podium in the courtroom and spoke.

“I apologize for the hurt and loss I’ve caused,” he said, later adding, “Every day I think about how things could have gone differently and how I regret my actions. I’m sorry.”

Fields’s comment came after more than a dozen survivors of and witnesses to the attack delivered emotional testimony about the physical and psychological wounds they had received as a result of the events that day.

The “Unite the Right” rally on Aug. 12, 2017, drew hundreds of white nationalists to Charlottesville to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

James Alex Fields Jr., (2nd L with shield) is seen attending the "Unite the Right" rally
James Alex Fields Jr., (2nd L with shield) is seen attending the “Unite the Right” rally in Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017. (Eze Amos/Reuters)

Hundreds of counterprotesters also turned up to the rally, including far-left group Antifa, who turned up with weapons, shields, and chemical spray, and as tensions heightened, Fields drove his car through the crowd, injuring more than 30 people and killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.

The case stirred racial tensions around the country.

Fields was charged with 29 hate crime counts and one count of “racially motivated violent interference.” He pleaded guilty to 29 of the counts.

In a sentencing memo filed in court last week, Fields’s lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Michael Urbanski to consider a sentence of “less than life.”

“No amount of punishment imposed on James can repair the damage he caused to dozens of innocent people. But this Court should find that retribution has limits,” his attorneys wrote.

Fields faces sentencing in state court on July 15. A jury has recommended life plus 419 years.

By Denise Lavoie

The Epoch Times contributed to this report. 

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