A federal judge sentenced James Alex Fields Jr., a self-described neo-Nazi, to life in prison for federal hate crimes committed during a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., the AP reports.
Driving the news: Fields, 22, was charged with both state and federal crimes for deliberately driving his car into a group of peaceful anti-racism protestors at the 2017 "Unite the Right" rally. One woman, Heather Heyer, was killed in the attack and more than 2 dozen others were injured. He still faces sentencing July 15 on the state conviction of first-degree murder.
After Friday's sentence, Thomas T. Cullen, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, said the Charlottesville attack set a new precedent for future cases of domestic terrorism, per the New York Times.
Go deeper:
