Thread by @socialistdogmom

richard preston was sentenced to eight years, with half suspended. he’ll serve four years for discharging a firearm within 1000 feet of a school (more specifically, at corey long) on august 12, 2017.

charlottesville commonwealth’s attorney joe platania says preston was remanded to custody after the hearing and will be headed to albemarle charlottesville regional jail now.

alright folks, preston’s sentencing hearing was finally completed today, after a failed first attempt back in may. notes on that hearing are here:

https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/994259373219336192?s=21

we got off to a bit of a late start, including news from elmer that nathan damigo, evan mclaren, and john paul struys are all withdrawing their appeals on their october 2017 convictions for failure to disperse in a riot last august 12.
nbc29.com/story/36591151…

the commonwealth opened only by referring the judge back to the may 9th hearing (though judge moore admitted he hadn’t fully reviewed his notes from that day) and elmer offered no opening statement at all.

there are no official guidelines for sentencing this particular charge as a sole offense as it is very rarely charged that way. it’s typically used as an “enhancement” for other shooting related charges.

https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/993884916592111617?s=21

without sentencing guidelines, the judge had a wide range to sentence within, 2-10yrs. at the arraignment in may, as the judge questioned preston to ensure he understood his guilty plea, elmer seemed surprised to discover the maximum sentence wasn’t 5yrs.

https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/993887398189764608?s=21

the only witness offered by the defense today was daryl davis, a black man who says he’s convinced over 200 klansmen to leave the KKK.
npr.org/2017/08/20/544…

davis also testified at preston’s may 9th hearing. his statements today were similar, to the point of being nearly verbatim at times. they’ve been friends for 5.5 years, they’ve visited each other at one another’s homes, etc.

https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/994261320852746245?s=21

at the end of the may 9th hearing, the judge allowed preston to leave virginia to make occasional trips home to maryland to take care of personal business.

https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/994259718452535297?s=21

what i didn’t note at the time was this small aside at the end — richard preston asked the judge if he could be allowed to visit the african american history museum with his friend daryl davis.
(pictured: handwritten notes from the may 9 hearing)

the klan wizard & his one black friend visited the museum of african american history & culture earlier this month. the defense introduced as evidence today a small binder full of pictures of their outing. no one mentioned the confederate flag bandana preston wore thRNm4K5kX

don’t bother clicking through to the CNN story about their little boys’ day out. in a video, preston claims to have never terrorized a black person.

cnn.com/2018/08/10/us/…

davis was on the stand for less than five minutes today. aside from producing the scrapbook about the klansman’s trip to the african american history museum, daryl said he walked preston’s bride down the aisle at their wedding earlier this year

daryl also told the judge the two men are planning to visit both the holocaust museum and the museum of the american indian together (i guess this will have to wait a few years)

charlottesville commonwealth’s attorney joe platania acknowledges that this is “the first felony sentencing event” related to the events of august 12, 2017 (jacob goodwin and alex ramos face felony sentencing on thursday) & that this is “extremely important to this community.”

platania acknowledges that the criminal justice system is “an imperfect instrument” for addressing what he vaguely refers to as “the weighty issues” facing this community & the world.

platania says that his office has worked hard throughout to ensure their prosecutions stemming from the events of last summer are “about conduct, not ideology,” “this is about punishing conduct and choices mr preston made.”

“he [preston] made the decision to utter a racial slur” and fire his gun into a crowd. despite his & others’ testimony about his skill with firearms, platania points out that the environment was chaotic -

platania: firing a gun in that environment, “it’s tough to describe how poorly that could’ve gone,” what if someone had stepped out in front of him? what if it had ricocheted?

platania says (and the judge later echoes) that one of the more serious dangers of firing his gun in that environment is how many other armed people (police, militia, and others) were in the crowd. it could easily have caused others to react by shooting.

platania says preston has shown no remorse, and in fact has seemed at times “boastful and gleeful” about his actions. the law allows a sentence of 2-10 years and up to $100k fine. the commonwealth recommends “somewhere in the middle, not the low end of 2-3 years.”

platania acknowledges that “mr preston is a complicated individual,” which seems like something that didn’t need saying, and says “mr davis is doing many positive things,”

platania wonders if preston’s actions might’ve been different if davis had taken him to the african american history museum BEFORE a12... wasn’t he listening when davis said he and preston have been friends for over 5 years?

if 5yrs of friendship with a man who claims to have talked 200 klansmen out of their hoods still has preston shouting the n word as he fires a gun at a black man, i don’t think a day out at the museum with davis is going to fundamentally shift the klan wizard’s attitudes on race.

elmer wastes no time getting dramatic. “he had a guy comin’ at him with a stick with a nail in it sayin’ ‘i’m gonna kill you’” (i don’t recall that actually being testified to at the dec 14 prelim, may 8th arraignment, or may 9th failed sentencing, but i’ll double check i guess?)

elmer says people have the right to arm themselves in the face of a credible threat, “he had a right to do that and he did that,” preston was protecting people “from being burned alive.” (that’s... an incredible overstatement unsupported by testimony, facts, or reality)

samples of utterly wild shit elmer woodard said today about the time his client fired a gun into a crowd:
“why on earth was he [corey long] trying to set people on fire that day?”
“mr preston chose to keep his friends from being burned to death.”
“he saved those people’s lives.”

“the whole thing was started by a man with a flamethrower.”
elmer, buddy. i think you have to go back a few more minutes in the timeline to say how “the whole thing” started.

elmer tries to answer platania’s concern about unintended consequences of firing the gun with concerns of his own — “mr platania doesn’t mention what would’ve happened if somebody had walked into that flamethrower!”

elmer, who doesn’t understand the simplest of concepts: “what about the ricochet of the flamethrower? what if he had DROPPED the flamethrower?”
the first one isn’t a thing. the answer to your second question is “the flame would’ve stopped immediately.”

elmer complains that juries gave recommendations of 6-8 years “for somebody who got beat up” (obviously referring to deandre harris, assaulted by several men last august, one of whom elmer represents) “and all that happened here was a hole in the ground.”

elmer actually mentioned his client jacob goodwin both by name and by allusion several times today. goodwin’s sentencing hearing for his felony malicious wounding conviction is on thursday. elmer, you can’t prime the judge for that hearing. it won’t work.

here’s where it got incredibly fucking weird.
elmer spent A VERY LONG TIME telling the court the story of the lost battalion, a group of US soldiers let by then-major (later lieutenant colonel, never a full colonel as elmer kept referring to him) charles whittlesey in WWI.

i’m just gonna drop the link to the wikipedia article for that particular historical moment here. he told the story with such intensity, such passion... and so many historical errors.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Batt…

the story seems to have sparked elmer’s interest due to the detail about the german stormtroopers equipped with flamethrowers. he was nearly frothing at the mouth describing how whittlesey beat “nazis” to death in hand-to-hand combat.

(he did mention, as a small aside after actually saying the word nazi, that they weren’t *exactly* nazis, but let’s be perfectly clear that german soldiers in 1918 were not nazis)

of whittlesey elmer said, “how many lives did he save by putting his on the line by beating that guy to death?” that whittlesey received a medal of honor for “killing the guy with the flamethrower.”

“in a way,” elmer says, “that’s what mr preston did. somebody had to stop the man with the flamethrower.” “he had to act and he did.”

after a long and confusing (and very dramatic!) aside about WWI, it was suddenly clear that he saw this as a direct comparison - his client was the war hero charles whittlesey and corey long was “a nazi” who needed to be killed.

i’m really struggling with the idea that you can remain a member of the virginia bar after suggesting it would’ve been great if maybe your client had bayoneted a man to death.
then again, we’re talking about the man who has insulted & abused my friend @EmilyGorcenski for a year.

in case you’d forgotten, elmer is also a transphobic piece of shit

https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/1014134863165837312?s=21

after his strange, violent, and incorrect history lesson, elmer told the judge that preston had “pretty much no previous record” and had complied with all conditions, including that he “voluntarily went to the museum” with davis.

elmer tells judge moore that "in many ways, he [preston] was forced into this action," and he doesn't "believe it's proper to send a man to prison who hasn't hurt anybody," "the only thing that got hurt was some mulch at the park" (referring to where preston's bullet hit)

elmer continued, "it may not be proper to send ramos and goodwin to prison, but somebody got hurt." elmer will be back in front of judge moore on thursday afternoon for his client jacob goodwin's sentencing for felony malicious wounding. goodwin & others nearly killed deandre.

then elmer did the thing he always does and told a long, rambling, entirely irrelevant personal anecdote. this time it was about an incident that definitely for sure happened where a man pointed "the biggest .38 i've ever seen" at him. he says he was scared, "but i survived it."

"we've all been scared before." "people got scared. people were upset." elmer is equating having a gun pointed at him in a stairwell with his client *ACTUALLY FIRING A GUN INTO A CROWD DURING A RIOT.*
people weren't just "upset," they could've been killed.

elmer finishes by saying "we must see the thousand degree flame that caused this," before sitting down dramatically. there was several minutes of silence as judge moore appeared to be reviewing and marking his notes.

judge moore asked richard preston if there was anything he wanted to say before his sentence was decided. tearfully, he said "i am sorry i had to make that choice. i only had seconds to decide how to save those people. i didn't want to hurt anybody and i didn't hurt anybody."

in typical fashion, judge moore delivered a long explanation of his decision. it borders on sermonizing, oftentimes, but it is interesting to see how emotionally he's arriving at these decisions.

judge moore firmly, repeatedly rejected the idea that richard preston was acting in self defense, in defense of others, out of heroism, or out of fear.
"this whole thing was driven by anger & belligerence, not fear."
"i don't know if it was hatred, but it was anger."

moore, who will preside over corey long's disorderly conduct appeal in january 2019, said "i don't find what mr long did was a justification" [for shooting at him]
"it was stupid, it made people feel uncomfortable, but ultimately he was just trying to make a point."

"i don't think you were saving people's lives by shooting at him," the judge told the klan wizard
[not a sentence i ever thought i'd write]

during elmer's long side story about WWI, he said "in situations like these, the rules go out the window." moore referred back to that statement specifically to disagree.
"i think it was a choice. i think you were mad."

as platania mentioned, when preston pulled out his gun on august 12, 2017, he risked setting off a chain reaction.
moore: "the whole downtown area was a powderkeg," "as soon as you pulled out your gun, they could've shot you."
"we're lucky it didn't turn into a gun battle."

moore, again pushing back against elmer's narrative that preston had been acting in defense of others, "you thought you were helping & doing something right. you were mistaken. i don't think you were helping at all."

referring to preston's actions in this video (in which preston is seen, gun in hand, next to alex ramos in emancipation park on A12, shouting "go ahead motherfucker, i'm telling you, i will shoot you!"), moore says "you were like a middle schps://t.co/viOuawZVk6

i don't know what the hell kinds of middle schoolers judge moore knows, but i agree that preston's behavior is irresponsible. he chided preston for standing at the top of the stairs "shouting & taunting," which seems to get more emphasis than the brandishing & threatening 🤷‍♀️