CHARLOTTESVILLE (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Hingeley says prosecutions are likely over in cases involving the August 11, 2017 march on UVA Grounds by torch carrying white supremacists. Hingeley told WINA’s Morning News they got what’s likely a final conviction last month of former Marine Vasillios Pistolis in a jury trial of a count of using fire to racially intimidate. The prosecution successfully argued Pistolis used the torch in a way that counterprotestors feared of bodily harm. That follows the conviction late last year of Unite the Right co-organizer and Florida attorney Augustus Sol Invictus on the same charge. There were also guilty pleas from a number of other torch-carrying participants with the final tally according to The Daily Progress’ Hawes Spencer at 11 total convictions. CvilleRightNow.com has asked Hingeley to confirm that number.

Hingeley said the reason cases extended into 2025 from the activities of a violent torchlight mob who confronted counterprotesters at the Jefferson statue north of the Rotunda in 2017 was then-Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracy did not believe there was anything to prosecute. Hingeley said that was what greatly motivated him to run for Commonwealth’s Attorney in 2019, and his campaign was successful. He said the fact the prosecutions started so late has added to the protraction of the proceedings. Defense arguments to the prosecutions revolved mostly around free speech rights of the white supremacist protestors which Hingeley agrees they have that right now matter how detestable that speech may be. However, he said his prosecutors successfully argued that “the right of free speech does not extend to the point where you can threaten somebody and put them in fear of bodily harm, and when they cross that line they commit a crime”.

Hingeley can only speak for the possibility of prosecutions being over in from that August 11 torchlight march. However, he cannot speak for the next day’s violence in downtown Charlottesville. He says the University of Virginia Grounds is Albemarle County jurisdiction, but he does not have jurisdiction over proceedings that happened in the City of Charlottesville.