Jury awards $26M in damages for Unite the Right violence

By DENISE LAVOIE
AP Legal Affairs Writer

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — A jury has ordered 17 white nationalist leaders and organizations to pay $26 million in damages over violence that erupted during the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. After a nearly monthlong civil trial, the jury deadlocked on two key claims but found the white nationalists liable on four other counts in the lawsuit filed by nine people who suffered physical or emotional injuries during the two days of demonstrations. The lawsuit accused some of the country’s most well-known white nationalists of plotting the violence, including Jason Kessler, the rally’s main organizer; Richard Spencer, who coined the term “alt-right”; and Christopher Cantwell, a white supremacist who became known as the “crying Nazi.”