Burning Objects

Published Feb 29, 2024, 5:00 AM

Patriot Front’s Thomas Rousseau has been arrested for a felony, but what is it? Molly Conger recaps the ongoing prosecutions of the tiki torch mob.

Cool Zone Media.

Hello, and welcome back to It could happen here. I am once again your guest host, Molly Conger, and today I'm going to tell you about something that is happening here here being my hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia. You might have seen the news recently that Patriot Front leader Thomas Ryan Russo was arrested in Texas on an out of state felony warrant. On February twenty third, authorities in McLennan County, Texas, arrested Rousseau and booked him into the county jail. The jail roster lists the offense as burn object to intimidate OH slash s that OS means out of state, and it lists Virginia as the state issuing the warrant. And Rousseau's arrest certainly made a splash when the news hit. Nazi telegram channels lit up with posts about his arrest. Gab feeds were flooded with hastily made graphics decrying this political persecution. This sudden spike and interest in a little used Virginia Code section might make you think Russeau was the first person to be taken into custody on this charge that perhaps he was targeted for arrest in some kind of grand political plan to take him out of the game. But he is in fact the eleventh person to be arrested in just the last year for participating in the Tiki Torch march at the University of Virginia on August eleventh, twenty seventeen. These cases have been working their way through the system here for long enough that some of Russeau's Code defendants have not only already been found guilty, they've served their time and gotten back out. But with this sudden surge and interest in this case, I want to give you all a little background on the other ten. If you'll indulge me for a moment, though, I'd like to read you something I wrote nearly a year ago, just as the first cases were being unsealed. There is no statute of limitations on felonies in Virginia. With that in mind, here's section eighteen point two Dash four twenty three point oh one Dash B of the Code of Virginia. Burning objects on property of another or a highway or other public place with intent to intimidate any person who with the intent of intimidating any person or group of persons burns an object on a highway or other public place in a manner having a direct tendency to place another person in reasonable fear or apprehension of death or bodily injury is guilty of a Class six felony. On August eleventh, twenty seventeen, hundreds of torch bearing marchers traversed the grounds of the University of Virginia. They'd come to Charlottesville from across the country, taking Friday morning flights or taking turns at the wheel for cross country drives, and rented vans with guys they met on message boards. Arriving early before the big event. The following morning, they gathered at Nameless Field, a grassy acre near the Via tennis courts with a deceptive name, and distributed tiki torches. Men with walkie talkies clipped to their belts, some with wired earpieces, barked orders. Elliott Kleine, an ambitious young white nationalist organizer calling himself Eli Moseley to the twentieth century British fascist Oswald Mosley, shouted at the crowd as they formed into a line or picking big guys, no females. Klein and his security team would be selecting the biggest marshers to lay down their torches and keep the perimeter as the march moved through the university grounds, they might need their hands free. The march wound its way through grounds, up the lawn, then up the steps of the University of Virginia's iconic rotunda. On the other side of the rotunda, gathered near the statue of Thomas Jefferson, a small group of anti racist protesters waited. In her testimony during a later civil trial, one of the women who was terrorized that night said of the sound of the approaching crowd. When we heard the roaring, we just linked arms and held hands and started to sing. She said. At first it sounded like thunder, like the earth was growling. As they grew closer, but before she could see the light of the torches, she began to make out the chance hundreds of voices raised in Unison, shouting blood and soil. Testifying about that night four years later, she said she could still hear it sometimes in her nightmares, and by the time the small group of mostly students realized the magnitude and ferocity of the approaching mob, it was too late. They were surrounded fully encircled at the base of the statue by hundreds of torch wielding white supremacists for a few minutes, minutes that those trapped at the base of the statue said they believed might be their last. As they were doused in lighter fluid, maced, and punched. There was a melee. The police made no move to intervene, as streams of pepper spray were let loose and cries of medic were audible above the roar of you will not replace us. When the trapped counter protesters were finally able to flee, stumbling blindly with burning eyes and covering their heads in a hail storm of fists and torches, the marchers declared victory. Richard Spencer, an organizer of that weekend's rally, climbed the base of the statue and delivered a victory speech to the still roaring crow out now shouting hail, victory, Hail Spencer. Spencer told them, we occupy this ground. We won.

Girls, are all right, all right? All right? Were these freaks on these rights.

By this ground?

We only one?

What in the hell are we doing out here? What in the hell are we doing risking our lives. Are were risking our lives, for our people, for our ancestors, for our future. That's how we're doing what you're think an antick arts long, you're thinking antibuck and feed.

The marchers dispersed to their various hotels, campgrounds and airbnbs. Spencer later said cheekly that he booked his under the pseudonym literally Hitler. They had to rest up for the real battle in the morning, and while they slept, a young man from Ohio was driving through the night, perhaps already knowing that his gray Dodge Challenger would be impounded as a murder weapon. Before he slept again, he checked Twitter and retweeted a post David Duke had tweeted images of the Torch March celebrating the alt right success that evening with the caption our people on the march, will you be at Unite the Right tomorrow. As he left Ohio that evening, the young man and the Dodge Challenger got a text from his mother, a text weave all probably gotten from our mothers. She said, be careful and James Alex Fields Junior, in one of the last texts he sent before a lifetime behind bars, replied to his mother with a photograph of Hitler and the words we are not the ones who need to be careful. Years later, the word Charlesville has become synonymous with those two fused images, Fields's mangled challenger and an iconic photo of the crowd torches and hands the rotunda at their backs. Fields was convicted both in state and federal court of Heather Hire's murder and multiple counts of aggravated malicious wounding. Daniel Bordon, Alex Ramos, Jacob Goodwin, and Tyler Watkins went away for a brutal gang beating of a young black man. Richard Preston, an imperial wizard in the Ku Klux Klan, did some time for discharging his firearm in the general direction of another young black man while shouting die and word. But all in all, for all the violence of both days, there was a curious reluctance to bring charges for anything that didn't rise to the level of attempted murder, and some things that did. There are thousands of photographs videos from every conceivable angle taken by victims, bystanders, professional photojournalists, and even the marchers themselves. Their faces are uncovered, their motives are clear, and the law is fairly straightforward, but the University of Virginia lies within the jurisdiction of Albemarle County. In twenty seventeen, Apemwal County commonwealths Attorney Robert Tracy chose not to bring any burning objects cases under Section eighteen point two Dash four twenty three. He didn't think he could make a case against the tiki torch mob, or maybe he didn't want to. The commonwealths Attorney for the City of Charlesville all the time, Dave Chapman, wrote in a memo in October of that year that he did believe the cases could be made, but they weren't his to prosecute. But in Virginia, prosecutors come and go, and a felony lives forever. In a October twenty nineteen debate between then sitting Prosecutor Robert Tracy and his challenger, Jim Hinchley, Tracy again scoffed at the idea of indicting these cases, even saying that Hindley's belief that it was possible was a sign he was inexperienced and wrong for the job. A month later, Hineley won the election, and now it seems he's trying to make good on his campaign promise of proving Robert Tracy wrong. In February twenty twenty three, the Albumole County Commonwealth's Atorney's office quietly sought and got indictments under the Burning object Statute. A grand jury agreed with Hindley there was probable cause to believe that objects had been burned with the intent to intimidate. Fugitive warrants were issued, arrests were made by local police and far ranging jurisdictions, And now, nearly six years after that hot night in August, the extraditions are starting. I want to share with you the stories of the men who carried torches that night. Some of them are now facing felony charges of Almorle County. Others may come to share that fate. After the crowd dispersed that night, and after the deadly rally the next morning, those men went home. Some started businesses, some died, Some trafficked drugs, beat their wives, choked their girlfriends, went to grad school, went to prison, started families, ran for office, left the movement, tried to lead the movement, or just tried to disappear. There are as many stories as there were flames in the night, when their voices joined as one, shouting, Jews will not replace us, then going their separate ways back to the communities they came from. And now some of them are on their way back, this time against their will. So I wrote that about ten months ago, last April, just as the first cases were unsealed. Obviously a lot's happened since then. But before I get into a recap of those first ten cases, let's hear a brief word about some products and services. So if Thomas Rousseau is number eleven on this list of tiki torch defendants who were the first ten, the grand jury that convened in February of last year handed down the first five indictments, will Zachary Smith, William Billy Williams, Tyler Dykes, Dallas, Medina, and William Fears. Will Smith of Nakona, Texas was the first in custody. He was actually already in custody here in Charlottesville when the first charges were filed. He had been indicted on a separate felony charge back in twenty eighteen for Pepper Spring the counter protesters that night, but remained a fugitive until his arrest in January twenty twenty three, so when the prosecutor brought the torch charges to the grand jury in February, it was probably an easy first choice. Will Smith pled guilty to the torch charge in May in a sealed plea deal that dropped the much more serious pepper spray felony, and was allowed to return home without being sentenced. Billy Williams traveled here with will Smith back in twenty seventeen. The pair were acting as bodyguards for Robert Asmadore Ray, the Daily Stormer blogger, who is actually also still a wanted fugitive on a felony charge of pepper spraying those counter protesters that night. When Billy Williams was extradited from Texas in April of last year, he was denied bond after some apparent dishonesty regarding his relationship with Robert Ray. Through his attorney, he denied having had any contact with Ray while he was a fugitive. He in fact claimed they barely knew each other, having met only a couple of times. I can tell you that's not that's not true. But after claiming that they'd had no contact in the intervening years. The prosecutor revealed in the bond hearing that law enforcement partners had shared information with his office that they believe that not only had they been contact, but that Ray had been living with Williams, living on his property while he was in hiding as a fugitive. Williams two pled guilty to the burning object charge in July, receiving an active sentence of six months but with time served and good behavior. He was home barely two weeks after entering his plea, but not before he missed the birth of his seventh child with his common law wife. Tyler Diykes was arrested on Saint Patrick's Day. He'd been out with other members of the white supremacist group the Southern Sons Active Club, trying to hang a racist banner from a highway overpass in Savannah, Georgia, when he was unfortunately bitten by a dog. I do not have information on what came of the dog. I hope he's okay, concerned about infection, though, Tyler Diykes went to the emergency room to have the wound looked at. In Georgia, as in most states, emergency rooms contact the police to report dog bite injuries. An officer was dispatched to the hospital to take a report from Dikes about the dog bite incident, which is a fairly routine situation, but somewhere during their interaction in the hospital, the officer ran Dike's name to the system and it came back with a warrant. A panicked Dikes sent his hate group group chat a quick text, I'm being arrested by Virginia nuke my account. In video of the melee the base of the statue on August eleven, twenty seventeen, Dikes can be seen throwing punches even after everyone else had stopped, and then celebrating the victory by marching around in a weird, tight little circle with his right arm extended in a Nazi salute. Dikes pled guilty to the torch charge in May and received the same six month act of sentence Williams had gotten with time served and good behavior. He was released in July. I wonder if he expected to see his elderly parents waiting for him in the parking lot outside of the album ArHL Charltsville Regional Jail that day, but he never made it that far. US marshals took him into federal custody before he ever walked outside. He's currently out on bond, awaiting trial on ten counts for his participate patient in the January sixth insurrection. Dallas Medina of Ohio turned himself in in April and was allowed to return home on bond. He had been an active member of an extremely online group of mass shooting enthusiasts calling themselves the Bowl Patrol, so named after the bull cut hair styles sported by their idol, Dylan Roof. After a feud with Chris the Crying Nazi Catwell ended with Catwell in federal prison, the group more or less fell apart in twenty twenty. Medina hasn't appeared in court since his bond hearing in April, and he doesn't yet have a trial date. William Fiers was booked into the Albumoral Charlesville Regional Jail in June after being transferred from the Texas prison where he was serving a sentence for domestic violence. Just two months after Unite the Right, William Fears beat and choked his girlfriend. A few days later, he traveled to Florida with his brother, Colton Fears and their friend Tyler Tenbrink. To see Richard Spencer's speech at the University of Florida. He knew when he left town for Gainesville that week that his girlfriend had reported the assault, having already been to prison for abducting and stabbing a different ex girlfriend years earlier, He knew another conviction would put him away for a while, and he wanted one last shot at starting the race war before they got him. In video from the Torch March, William Fears can be seen swinging his torch at a counter protester, screaming Die Commie. Fears remains in custody but does not yet have a trial date. William's brother, Colton Fears, joined him at the Albumarle Charlesville Regional Jail in September. I suspect the jail probably kept them separated, but it still would have been the closest the brothers had been in years. When the brothers were in Gainesville in October of twenty seventeen, their friend Tyler Tenbrink shot at a group of anti fascist counter protesters after Richard Spencer's speech. Thankfully, no one was injured, but Tenbrink was convicted of attempted first degree homicide. Colton Fears was driving the car when the men left the scene of the shooting, and spent five years in a Florida prison for accessory after the fact to attempted first degree homicide. Colton was released in twenty twenty two and returned home to Texas, where he was then arrested in August twenty twenty three on the burning object charge. After pleading guilty in October, he was allowed to return home prior to sentencing. Ryan Roy of Vermont turned himself in in May. If you've been reading the voluminous leagues that seemed to be constantly springing forth from Patriot Front's online comms, you may know him better as Rex. It looks like he's stayed quite busy in the years since Unite the Right as a member of Patriot Front. He is currently home on bond and does not yet have a trial date. Jamie Troutman of West Virginia turned himself in in October under the pseudonym Altright VA. Troutman was an active organizer and planner of the Unit the Right rally. He was present at many of the precursor events that took place here in Charlesville during the Summer of Hate, including the two other torch marches, smaller torchlit rallies that were held in downtown Charlottesville in May and October of that year. Like Dyke's photos show, Troutman was present at the Capitol on January sixth, though in Troutman's case no charges have been filed, he too is home on bond with no trial date set. And before we get to the last two of those first ten cases, let's hear from someone who has also not been charged in connection with the militant reactionary attempt to overthrow the US government these products and services. The final two of these first ten torch cases are the messy ones. So we've got these four guilty please, and we've got four cases that are sort of moving along slowly down the usual path. And then we've got two cases where the defendants have had some success bogging the cases down with motions. Jacob Dix of Ohio was arrested in July. Dix is seen in photos and video on the eleventh and twelfth with two other Ohio men, his roommate Ryan Martin, who recently passed away, and Daniel Borden, one of the men convicted of beating a man nearly to death during the rally on August twelfth. I'm sure we'll learn more about Dix as his case progresses, but I have found him in photos with the Traditionalist Worker Party at the Nazi rally in Pikeville earlier that same summer. In his torch case, he has been granted both a substitute judge and a special prosecutor based on a sort of nebulous though very loudly argued conspiracy theory involving the wife of a judge who is not even presiding over his case and a prosecutor who has a history of expressing anti racist political views in his personal life. Dix is out on bond. With the recent rule in granting him a special prosecutor, we may be seeing a trial date get set in the near future. And finally, Augustus Sole Invictus until Rousseau was arrested last week, the biggest name in this batch was Augustus and Victus. Even before his name was on the fliers as a headline speaker at Unite the Right, Invictus was no stranger to thees. In twenty sixteen, he ran for US Senate in Florida as a libertarian. His campaign was marred by such controversies as his own past statements on eugenics, a twenty thirteen ritual sacrifice of a goat, his legal representation of white supremacist militia leader Marcus Faiella, and numerous police reports from both his wife and his teenage girlfriend alleging domestic violence. In the years since, Invictis never did become a US senator despite a second attempt, and never did get convicted of domestic violence despite many, many more police reports. He's also no longer a pagan. Asked recently about the goat blood drinking ritual he performed in twenty thirteen, he quipped that he drinks human blood now just a little transubstantiation joke about his recent conversion to traditional Catholicism. Invictus was arrested on the burning object charge in Florida in June twenty twenty three and held for a month before being extradited to Virginia and released on bond. Like Dix, he has been granted a substitute judge. He too is seeking a special prosecutor, but no ruling was made at his last hearing. Currently, his case is docketed for trial next month. But I'm willing to bet that gets postponed. So that's more or less where we are now. Rousseau is the eleventh man to be charged in these cases. We've got four guilty please on the record, leaving him as one of seven open cases. We can expect to see Rousseau extradited from Texas to Virginia in the near future. I would say maybe a week or two, although some of them have been held for up to a month before a deputy can get down there and bring them back. Something I was really surprised to learn in all of this is in most extraditions for state cases like this, like these are not federal cases. These are local cases. When someone gets extradited long distance, a deputy just flies down there and then they fly back together on a commercial airline. It's not like a con air situation. They're just on an airplane together. So it really depends on when a deputy can sort of get down there and get them. So he'll be extradited sometime in the next few weeks, and then once he's booked into the album RL Charltsville Regional Jail, he'll get an appearance in court. It's anybody's guest right now who he'll hire to represent him. Former Proud Boy and current Patriot Front lawyer Jason Lee van Dyke was thoughtful enough to reply to one of my tweets about Rousseau's arrest to say that he will not be taking this case. As much as he would have loved to try this case, which he said that he would do a very good job doing and he could definitely do it, and unfortunately he just can't. He cited the difficulty in finding local council to assist. He's not admitted to the bar in Virginia, so who would need someone who is to sort of sponsor him in and be responsible for him in the case. So he said, you know, he can't find local council, and also it would just be two time consuming and too expensive to try a case in Virginia as he's located in Texas. So it won't be Jason Lee van Dyke writing about these cases in my newsletter The Devil's Advocates. It's on Ghost, which is like substack, but it's not substack. It's Ghost and I'm looking forward to writing some updates very soon. The finding out for this particular fucking around has been a long time coming, and I can't help but wonder if these cases had been brought sooner, Patriot Front might not even exist. You know, I suspect once Rousseau has gotten a lawyer, he will ask for a bond hearing. That's probably what's next. It's impossible to know how much information other law enforcement agencies are interested in sharing with the local prosecutor, but that kind of information sharing did play a critical role in some of the other cases. In bond hearings for Billy Williams and Tyler Diykes, information about the defendant's associations and activities collected by other local police agencies and federal authorities was what kept them in custody. In Diykes's case, several police and sheriff's departments in South Carolina and George Arja shared information that he was a suspect in some like swastika vandalism cases, some flying cases. It's not clear if the FEDS shared information ahead of time about the January sixth case, but it is it is clear that the prosecutor's office was talking to other law enforcement agencies who'd been keeping tabs on these guys. And I think you would be a fool to think the FEDS don't have some information about Rousseau that might raise a judge's eyebrow. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It could Happen Here, Updated monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.

It Could Happen Here

It Could Happen Here started as an exploration of the possibility of a new civil war. Now a daily sh 
Social links
Follow podcast
Recent clips
Browse 1,063 clip(s)