After being convicted of first-degree murder on Friday, James Alex Fields Jr. has been sentenced to life in prison for murdering Heather Heyer at the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia last year.
The self-proclaimed neo-Nazi drove his car into a group of counterprotesters during the white supremacist rally on Aug. 12, 2017. The 21-year-old had traveled from Maumee, Ohio to join the neo-Nazi group Vanguard America. His attack killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer while injuring 35 others, some of whom suffered severe physical wounds.
On top of life in prison, Fields was sentenced to 70 years for each of his five counts of aggravated malicious wounding, 20 years for each of his three counts of malicious wounding, and nine years for leaving the scene of a fatal crash, according to the Washington Post. That’s a total of 419 years in addition to life in prison and $480,000 in fines.
Fields showed little remorse for his actions, calling Heyer’s mother Susan Bro “one of those anti-white communists” and his enemy following the attack. He did not deny intentionally driving his vehicle into counterprotestors or plead insanity.
He is still facing federal charges and a trial for hate crimes related to the incident, which carry the possibility of a death sentence.
