Thread by @socialistdogmom

five folks in front of judge downer in charlottesville general district court this morning facing (bullshit) charges brought by jason kessler -- 4 from aug 13, one from way back in may. we saw 4 convictions (one on reduced charges), sadly, and one continuance to feb 2019.

"commander" derrick davis of the TWP out of RVA, poster of last weekend's video threatening to 'raise the traditionalist workers' party flag over cville once again,' showed up with a man i'm told is his father. i thought it mighta been his daddy... turned out it was just his dad.

no sign of that flag in the park before or after court, though. he was present to testify on a may 20, 2017 assault charge kessler originally brought against veronica fitzhugh. this charge was dropped because... kessler admits he lied to police and it didn't happen. surprise!

before court was called to order, i caught a few snippets of kessler & davis chatting in the rows behind me.
"it's hard to be the bigger person," says failed 'organizer' and local nazi jason kessler to pathetic worm & nazi derrick davis.

kessler ran through his usual victim act, complaining of the "charlottesville kangaroo court" that goes easy on "blacks" and "shitlibs." interestingly, i heard a nearly verbatim complaint from cantwell on his podcast yesterday. he must be a fan.

the always excellent jeff fogel represented veronica. i know this is court, not the red carpet, but snaps for V in her pink dress with the black patch on the back reading 'antifa.' 💕✊
with the assault dropped, she faced a disorderly conduct, to which she plead not guilty.

kessler testifies that on 5/20, he & "maybe 3 friends" were on a restaurant patio when a mob converged "screaming a lot of slurs, using a lot of obscenities," trying to get them to leave the premises. we were treated to several viewings of a vertical cell phone video.

the video, which i couldn't see well, had audio of a group chanting "nazis go home," among other things. i recognize V's voice & can see her pink hair several feet away from jason in part of the video. she's heard asking onlookers if they heard him threaten her.

special prosecutor called in to handle kessler's mess is quick to stop the video when it reaches audio of V talking about kessler threatening her. kessler, asked to ID her in the video describes her as "black female, very large. orange wig... pink wig." rude & possibly colorblind

kessler testifies that he was "worried," and called the police.
jeff fogel: "you say you were worried. were you worried your friends might react violently?"
kessler: "I was worried i might have to defend myself."

jeff fogel: "you were smiling"
kessler: "you have to take this kind of abuse with a grain of salt.
jeff: "you know this because you've administered this kind of abuse."
special prosecutor objects to this spicy take & judge sustains it. damn i love jeff fogel ✊

jeff also tries to raise kessler's pending perjury charges, but the special prosecutor and judge downer ARE NOT HAVING IT.
downer: "i'm not going to allow this as part of this case" to jeff's suggestion that he call ACA antony to testify to the pending perjury issue.

CPD officer eric thomas is called to testify. he confirms, when asked, that kesser told him that V assaulted him, which he later recanted.
jeff moves to strike -- argues that kessler himself acknowledged there was no real threat of violence in V's conduct. downer overrules.

V testifies that kessler said to her "if you continue this action, you will be punched." she's very calm and soft spoken. it hurts to see her so subdued.

prosecutor: "this conduct occurred in a public place and essentially invited an attack"
jeff: "i'm concerned about this notion that she invited him to strike her. he threatened to do it - she simply restated that."
later, SP: "mr. kessler exhibited decorum in this situation"

this is one of the many reasons i love seeing jeff in court -- he tries to interject to make a point during the SP's argument and gets slapped down by the judge. "you can always ask," he says, with a laugh. the gallery giggles a bit and gets a sharp rebuke from downer.

downer, on the video evidence: "when someone leans in as close as ms fitzhugh did" "it would not be deemed unlikely" that it would escalate to violence. so her speech is violence. and his is not. repeatedly. there is a pattern here.

judge downer cites another recent case of a similar assault charge on the downtown mall that he dismissed. he doesn't NAME the defendant... but he's referring to jeff fogel's own recent assault charge for allegedly pushing kessler's nazi buddy caleb norris. spicy small town court

veronica was found guilty of disorderly conduct and fined $250 with $200 suspended (plus court costs).
i have to take my good, good boys to the dog park -- they've been very patient with all this tedious nazi business. we'll pick up with brandon collins' assault charge after.

for my non-local readers, i should elaborate. jeff fogel is a goddamn badass. his recent run for cville CA was torpedoed when CPD dragged him out of his house in the middle of the night 2 weeks before the election on those bullshit assault charges.
dailyprogress.com/news/local/fog…

my man's got bona fides. he spoke at one of our chapter meetings not too long ago. he came up defending young lords & black panthers for pennies. he worked at a law commune that paid the janitor the same as the partners. he's the goddamn real deal and we're lucky to have hbSLW

he's been fighting this fight since my dad was in kindergarten. seeing his own charge tossed in his face as his client was convicted was surreal. this town has lost so much to this fucking nazi scourge.

Brandon was only up for about 4 minutes. he plead not guilty, but acknowledged there was sufficient evidence to convict, and was found guilty. no evidence or witnesses presented. SP requests 30 days suspended, 1 year good behavior, no contact w/kessler.

jeff states, for the record, that he doesn't feel any sentence should be imposed - given the climate of aug 13, kessler was provoking the public. goddamn right. if brandon did assault kessler, we ought to give him the keys to the fucking city, not a criminal record.

we got a token lecture from downer on the important of free speech, that we should never lay hands on someone for their speech no matter how offensive, etc. handed down a 10 day suspended sentence with one year good behavior. a goddamn shame.

next up, called at 11:25, was jeffrey winder, also charged with assaulting kessler on 8/13, at that 'press conference.' kessler & local news anchor henry graff are sworn in as witnesses. 25 minutes of testimony mostly has to do with certainty of kessler's ID of winder on video

kessler testifies that he approached the mic, "people were screaming, it was escalating," he felt unsafe, fled and "someone approached me from behind and struck me on the back of my head." he identified the assailant as a bald white man in his 40s, but he didn't actually see him?

kessler's ID of winder is based only on the video of the incident. winder's attorney tries to hand the judge some case law on the matter, but downer impatiently dismisses it as inapplicable (seems familiar w/the particular cases & offers clear explanations of their irrelevance)

winder's attorney presses on the ID, "you don't have personal knowledge" referring to the ID being based on video only, "you didn't actually, visually see what happened," "you posted on social media that you don't actually know who attacked you"
downer isn't interested in this.

attorney makes a motion that there's no foundation to continue, but downer strikes it down, "i couldn't disagree more, the foundation has been laid."
he rules that kessler's ID based on the video is fine.

special prosecutor: "mr. kessler, is that you running from the people?"
kessler: "yes."
as it should be, jason.

winder's attorney asks for clarification of the nature of his injuries -- "it hurt, but i wasn't injured."
he pursues a strange line of questioning about kessler's pending civil litigation that the judge shuts down.

henry graff, a journalist at NBC29 who had been assigned to the press conference that day, is called as a witness. he works with winder's wife at his other job at a winery and was previously acquainted with winder. he says he recognized him when reviewing the footage.

i feel bad for graff. he seems reluctant to ID winder - i get the impression he didn't realize when he reached out to winder in august that he'd be complicating his legal situation. he's careful, repeatedly, to say he isn't *certain* on the ID.

gotta say, not super impressed with winder's attorney. during questioning about graff's ID of winder on the video, he objects saying, "he's essentially asking for expert testimony," of the SP's request for graff to ID an acquaintance in a video.

"it's a really bad angle"
"it *looks* like him, yes"
"I can't say 100%"
"the picture is grainy"
graff is doing his best to be both completely honest and perhaps walk back the mistake he made in august.

winder's atty: "there's a true identification problem here and the commonwealth has not closed that loop." the judge disagrees -- says based on viewing the video, seeing winder, hearing kessler's testimony, he's confident beyond a reasonable doubt.

winder is found guilty of assaulting kessler on A13, sentenced to 30 days (all suspended), 1 year good behavior, and "no contact with... no *violent* contact with mr kessler"
interesting false start on that statement from judge downer.

11:50, phoebe stevens is called. phoebe, a teacher, is also charged with assaulting kessler at his press conference. she gives 10 minutes of very confident, convincing testimony that she was acting in the spirit of non-violent intervention.

she testifies that she was present on A11 & A12 as an observer, says she isn't an activist or with any group. she says she was present at the press conference because she "wanted to hear what he had to say" and was not angry.

you may remember her as the woman who "hugged" kessler at the press conference, shouting "we love you jason." she testifies that she did something similar on A12, throwing her arms around a man with a club, begging him not to hurt a woman.

of her peaceful intervention in E park on A12, phoebe said: "i ran up to him & i put my arms around him & said 'please don't, please don't do this, this is our town.' he asked me to let go, i did, & i was maced."
her demeanor is as i imagine it'd be in the classroom. surreal.

as this testimony plays out, i can't help but notice a woman who was badly injured in the car attack - sitting in her wheelchair in the aisle of the gallery, her leg propped up on the first row bench, scars visible, bandages over some unhealed wounds. if that ain't a metaphor.

phoebe was dressed for her cousin's baby shower when she stopped by the presser on A13. she wanted to hear kessler, but it was so chaotic she had to push her way to the front to hear.
"i remember thinking it was kind of strange that i could just get up front. there were no cops."

phoebe: "i saw mr kessler being hit. [...] he was fending off people. i remember thinking he looked like a frightened rabbit, darting back and forth. i couldn't figure out why the police weren't saving him. I thought he needed to hold still so the police could protect him."

honestly, i believe her. she was so earnest, so sincere, so calm, so consistent. she wanted to hold him still like she held the man with the club, to introduce a moment of stillness in which cooler thoughts could perhaps prevail. she's a sometime-yoga teacher, this makes sense.

"i threw my arms around him & said 'jason we love you.' we fell & i was helped up by a police officer, they took him out of there."
says her actions spurred the police to respond: "i got him out of the way of that train & the police finally did what they were supposed to do."

phoebe on kessler: "i'm not angry. his behavior is... not good. but him as a person? we all have hopes and dreams." (i object to this kind of humanization of men like kessler, but i have to admire her sincerity)
"i just wanted to get him safe."

prosecutor questions her about position of state troopers in a photo from that day.
phoebe: "they were there, but they weren't helping him."
kessler's own testimony corroborates this.
atty on the video: "as he's moving through the crowd, the officers are not moving toward him"

the prosecutor isn't having this touchy-feely defense. condescendingly, "it sounds like ms stevens is a nice lady, she just got caught up in the moment [...] she calls it a hug, but it was an attack."

phoebe's atty says the contact must be "angry, rude, insulting, or vengeful," and there's no evidence this 'hug' meets that standard.
in the gallery, someone's cell phone goes off... with a 'bad to the bone' ringtone.

judge downer: "i don't doubt for a minute a bit of her testimony, but it is an objective standard." says kessler perceived the contact that way, it's reasonable to assume it meets the standard. finds her guilty. he distinguishes it from winder's assault, but guilty nonetheless.

she's sentenced to 50 hours of community service to be completed before august 2019. i don't know phoebe, but i'm proud as hell of her & of folks in this town standing up with such conviction and dignity.

people in the courtroom got up to leave. must've been there just for phoebe. the noise muffled the beginning of proceedings for robert litzenberger, accused of spitting on kessler on A13. some kind of paperwork mishap... sounds like prosecutor's fault?
wtvr.com/2017/08/13/rob…

must've been a hell of a paperwork fuck up... prosecutor motioned to continue the case until february 1, 2019. that's a hell of a wait on this misdemeanor. defense didn't object, though, so downer scheduled the next appearance for a year from yesterday.

so those're the facts, comrades. at least the facts i managed to scribble down. i haven't written this much by hand since high school & it's wearing on me - my whole forearm hurts.
sad to see convictions all the way around, glad to see no jail time. keep on fightin' ✊

no cameras in the courtroom, but an incredibly talented comrade made this brilliant sketch 💕✊