The man who killed one woman and injured dozens of others when he rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters at a 2017 white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. has received an additional life sentence.
Twenty-two-year-old James Alex Fields Jr. of Ohio killed Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal, at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville two years ago, when he deliberately accelerated his car into a crowd protesting the neo-Nazi event. Judge Richard Moore of Virginia sentenced fields on Monday to life imprisonment plus 419 years and a fine of $480,000, following the recommendation of a state jury.
Heather Heyer’s mother Susan Bro said she feels James Fields life plus 419 year sentence will send message to other white supremacists that it’s unacceptable in Charlottesville and elsewhere. pic.twitter.com/LfD4Tgtk2q
— Neal Augenstein (@AugensteinWTOP) July 15, 2019
“Today’s verdict is based on what you did,” Moore said to Fields. “It was not a spur-of-the-moment action.”
Fields was found guilty of murdering Heyer in Moore’s court last December. In March, he pled guilty to 29 federal hate-crime charges as part of a plea deal that allowed him to avoid the death penalty. Last month, he was sentenced in connection with that federal case to life in prison without the possibility of parole.