/James Alex Fields, driver in deadly car attack at Charlottesville rally, sentenced to life in prison

James Alex Fields, driver in deadly car attack at Charlottesville rally, sentenced to life in prison

The driver who plowed his car into a group of counterprotesters at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, killing one and injuring dozens, was sentenced Friday to life in prison on federal hate crime charges.

James Alex Fields Jr. pleaded guilty to 29 of 30 hate crime charges in March in a plea deal to avoid the death penalty for murdering civil rights activist Heather Heyer and injuring more than 30 others when he intentionally mowed them down on a side street with his car on Aug. 12, 2017. The 30th charge, which included a possible death sentence, was dropped.

Prosecutors have said that Fields has shown no remorse for the violence and had a history of racist and anti-Semitic behavior.

Gasps could be heard Friday among a packed courtroom audience, which included Heyer’s mother, when prosecutors told that judge that a classmate of Fields had testified that during a high school trip to a German concentration camp, Fields had remarked: “This is where the magic happened.”

Prosecutors said they were told Fields was “like a kid at Disney World” during that trip. They had earlier said that Fields had revered Adolf Hitler, keeping a picture of him next to his bed.

Fields’ lawyers had asked U.S. District Judge Michael Urbanski to consider sentencing Fields to “less than life” He apologized Friday before the judge handed down his sentence.

“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,” defense attorneys wrote in a sentencing memo.

The lawyers had appealed for Urbanski to take the Ohio man’s mental health issues and troubled youth into account during sentencing. Fields’ attorneys said he was raised by a paraplegic single mother and suffered “trauma” living with the knowledge that his Jewish grandfather had murdered his grandmother before taking his own life.

Fields is also convicted of state charges, including first-degree murder, five counts of aggravated malicious wounding, three counts of malicious wounding and one hit and run count for injuring dozens of others with his vehicle. He is set to be sentenced on those charges on July 15, and a jury has already recommended life in prison plus 419 years.

An undated photo from the Facebook account of Heather Heyer, who was killed Aug. 12, 2017 when a car plowed into a crowd of counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia.Facebook / via Reuters

That jury found that Fields had purposefully rammed his Dodge Challenger into the crowd of counterprotesters following the rally. The “Unite the Right” protesters were there in part to fight the removal of a Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee statue. Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal, died from blunt force injury to the chest.

Star Peterson, one of the injured, had to undergo five surgeries on her right leg and uses a wheelchair and cane. Marcus Martin, a friend of Heyer’s, was hit by Fields’ car while pushing his wife out of the way and suffered a broken ankle, destroyed ligaments and twisted tibia.

President Donald Trump faced backlash when he blamed “both sides” for the violence at the protest, which critics saw as a failure to condemn racism and white nationalism, further adding to racial tensions raised by the case.

Associated Press contributed.

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