Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the last full length non
Speaker 2: rerun episode of twenty twenty five. This won't be the
Speaker 2: last thing on your feed this year, but it is
Speaker 2: the last regular episode until we pick back up in January.
Speaker 2: It's been a hodgepodge sort of month this month, but
Speaker 2: I think we're going to hit the ground running in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six with some stories you'll really get a
Speaker 2: kick out of. Today's episode is another one that isn't
Speaker 2: quite in the classic We're Little Guy's format, but it
Speaker 2: is about a guy a lot of you have been
Speaker 2: asking me about. Look, it's the end of the year.
Speaker 2: It's dark at four in the afternoon, but it's too
Speaker 2: cold to convince my dogs to go for a walk
Speaker 2: with me. Back when I had an office job, I
Speaker 2: could get away with pretending to look busy at my
Speaker 2: desk for the last week or so before any major holiday.
Speaker 2: The problem with the job I have now is that
Speaker 2: you guys would definitely notice if I spent the week
Speaker 2: goofing off online and then quickly switching to a big
Speaker 2: spreadsheet on my monitor if somebody walked by. It's okay, though,
Speaker 2: I like you guys a lot more than I liked
Speaker 2: anybody who ever looked over my shoulder at an office,
Speaker 2: so I'll do my best for you. I had planned
Speaker 2: on doing a sort of reverse weird little guy thing
Speaker 2: for the holidays. You know, I was gonna write an
Speaker 2: episode about a guy who is definitely a little odd,
Speaker 2: but like in a good way. But you know by
Speaker 2: now that I've never not once in my life sat
Speaker 2: down and written the thing I had in mind before
Speaker 2: I started. So that's not what this is. I didn't
Speaker 2: even start working on that. I'm not bound to this
Speaker 2: seasonal cycle. I can tell you a nice story about
Speaker 2: a different kind of guy some other time. We can
Speaker 2: have moments of joy anytime of year. Instead, today I'm
Speaker 2: going to keep my promise from last week and tell
Speaker 2: you a little bit more about the other man who
Speaker 2: lost his job the same day Tyler Dikes did. Back
Speaker 2: in October. Last week we were talking about Tyler Dikes.
Speaker 2: He's running for Congress in South Carolina, hoping to win
Speaker 2: the seat Nancy Mace's leaving. But before that, he was
Speaker 2: one of the nearly sixteen hundred people who received a
Speaker 2: presidential pardon for their actions on January sixth, twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: and before that will it was mostly Nazi stuff, And
Speaker 2: in last week's episode, I opened with a funny little synchronicity.
Speaker 2: Tyler Diykes's campaign launched shortly after he tweeted on October
Speaker 2: twenty second that he'd just been fired from another job.
Speaker 2: That was something that keeps happening to him because people
Speaker 2: won't stop calling him a Nazi, due in part to
Speaker 2: all the times he's been photographed in public giving Nazi salutes.
Speaker 2: And that same day, October twenty second, the Florida Supreme
Speaker 2: Court filed an order giving Augustus soul and Victus thirty
Speaker 2: days to offload all of his clients before his license
Speaker 2: to practice law was suspended. But by the time I
Speaker 2: finished picking apart the congressional candidate's conspiracy theory podcast appearances,
Speaker 2: I had run out of time and we never got
Speaker 2: to the second guy. And I paired those two seemingly
Speaker 2: unconnected stories because they started in the same place. They're
Speaker 2: both still living with the consequences of a trip they
Speaker 2: took to Charlottesville in August of twenty seventeen. It might
Speaker 2: seem like a strange preoccupation to you listener, how often
Speaker 2: a story that's winding its way in and out of
Speaker 2: side stories. We'll wind up here. I'm sure you've noticed
Speaker 2: comes up a lot, even if it's only in passing.
Speaker 2: Almost every one of these stories has some thread that
Speaker 2: connects it to Charlottesville, something that connects it to the
Speaker 2: Unite the Right rally here in August of twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: If you hadn't noticed it before, I'm sure you will now.
Speaker 2: It's always there. Gerald Drake, the Confederate reenactor who went
Speaker 2: to prison for threatening his former friends. He got the
Speaker 2: idea to pretend the bomb threats were from Antifa because
Speaker 2: he saw pictures of protesters in Black Bloc on the
Speaker 2: news after Unite the Right. Those fake grassroots marchigainst. Sharia
Speaker 2: rallies were organized by many of the same men who
Speaker 2: were planning the Unite the Right rally later that same summer.
Speaker 2: The featured speaker at the American Freedom Party conference earlier
Speaker 2: this year were both men who had led their respective
Speaker 2: organizations on the ground here in Charlottesville in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: At a twenty eighteen Brightbart News town hall, the man
Speaker 2: asking Anne Coulter about white genocide was the leader of
Speaker 2: a group that organized Unite the right over and over
Speaker 2: and over again. In all of these seemingly unrelated places
Speaker 2: and times. These stories are all connected, and it's not
Speaker 2: a coincidence. Part of that, to be fair, is that
Speaker 2: I live here. My own interest in figuring out how
Speaker 2: someone ends up marching in the streets at a Nazi
Speaker 2: rally started here. It was these guys in particular that
Speaker 2: sparked my interest in understanding the concept of the weird
Speaker 2: little guy as I write about them today. I have
Speaker 2: spent years reconstructing those events and trying to understand the
Speaker 2: men who marched here. That then led to a need
Speaker 2: to understand the groups they came with, which led to
Speaker 2: a need to understand where those groups came from and
Speaker 2: what preceded them. And it's been one long rabbit hole
Speaker 2: that I haven't dug myself back out of for more
Speaker 2: than eight years. So that's definitely part of why it
Speaker 2: comes up so often. It is what I know best.
Speaker 2: But truthfully, everything is connected, and that rally in twenty
Speaker 2: seventeen is a central node. It comes up all the
Speaker 2: time because everyone was there. It was the largest and
Speaker 2: most violent public gathering of white supremacists in the United
Speaker 2: States in decades. It was a pivotal moment in our
Speaker 2: collective understanding of political violence, and it didn't come out
Speaker 2: of nowhere. Every story I write about the present has
Speaker 2: a very clear relationship to that day, because the guy
Speaker 2: was probably there. But even in stories about the distant past,
Speaker 2: it's there, like the ghost of Nazi rallies yet to come.
Speaker 2: Just recently, I spent two months writing about the men
Speaker 2: whose lives intersected with the death of American Nazi Party
Speaker 2: leader George Lincoln Rockwell. Those stories mostly took place in
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixties, but that weekend in August fifty years
Speaker 2: later kept Elboyan's way into the story. That kind of
Speaker 2: white power march owed quite a bit to Rockwell, just
Speaker 2: in terms of the ideological lineage of that kind of event,
Speaker 2: but it's more than that. Some of his old friends
Speaker 2: were actually there. Decades after Rockwell's death, the man who
Speaker 2: still keeps the Nazis' ashes in a white urn on
Speaker 2: a swastika shrine drove halfway across the country to be here,
Speaker 2: and he'd told reporters that Rockwell would have been pleased
Speaker 2: to see it. So while it is a funny coincidence
Speaker 2: that Tyler Diykes and Augustus Invictus both became unemployable on
Speaker 2: October twenty second, twenty twenty five. It's not a coincidence
Speaker 2: that they both attended the rally in twenty seventeen and
Speaker 2: back in twenty seventeen. Tyler Dykes was just part of
Speaker 2: the crowd. He was some teenage nobody. Augustus Invictus, on
Speaker 2: the other hand, was here as a headline speaker. He
Speaker 2: had been part of the core group of organizers and
Speaker 2: was at the time a member of a group called
Speaker 2: the Fraternal Order of Alt Knights, which was a short
Speaker 2: lived subset of proud boys who were particularly committed to
Speaker 2: engaging in violence. And the night before the main event
Speaker 2: to take place, they were both in the crowd lining
Speaker 2: up for the tiki torch march at the University of Virginia.
Speaker 2: There were hundreds of them there that night, torches in hand,
Speaker 2: chanting as they marched through the university grounds and then
Speaker 2: encircled a small group of counter protesters at the base
Speaker 2: of the Thomas Jefferson Statue. But I've told you that
Speaker 2: part of the story before. This is an update. Of
Speaker 2: the hundreds of torch marchers, only twelve were ever charged
Speaker 2: under the Virginia law that makes intimidating someone with a
Speaker 2: burning object of felony. Tyler Dykes and Augustus and Vici
Speaker 2: were two of those unlucky twelve. Of those twelve, five
Speaker 2: pleaded guilty without taking it to trial. Tyler Dykes, of course,
Speaker 2: along with Colton Fears and his brother William Fears, and
Speaker 2: a pair of gigantic redheads from Texas named Billy Williams
Speaker 2: and will Smith. Another four took plea agreements that reduced
Speaker 2: their charge to misdemeanor disorderly conduct, Ryan Roy, Jamie Troutman, Dallas, Medina,
Speaker 2: and Patriot Front founder Thomas Rousseau. One of the twelve
Speaker 2: got lucky. Jacob Dix took his chances at trial, and
Speaker 2: the out of town's special prosecutor handling his case fumbled
Speaker 2: it so badly that jurors who watched video footage of
Speaker 2: the crime couldn't reach a verdict and it ended in
Speaker 2: a mistrial. Augustus and Victus and a former marine named
Speaker 2: Vassilios Pistols were both convicted at trial. And I think
Speaker 2: I will come back to some of these cases down
Speaker 2: the road, but today we're just talking about Invictus. As
Speaker 2: far as trials go, this one was as close to
Speaker 2: a slam dunk as I've ever seen. The charge requires
Speaker 2: that the defendant burned an object, that they did it
Speaker 2: in a public place, that their intent was to intimidate someone,
Speaker 2: and that the way they went about it would make
Speaker 2: a reasonable person afraid of death or bodily injury. In
Speaker 2: this case, the defendant himself provided the best piece of evidence,
Speaker 2: a thirty minute video that he live streamed from his
Speaker 2: phone during the march.
Speaker 3: Now we all live here at University of Virginia at
Speaker 3: the Torchlight Rally, high energy, as you can tell, high tea,
Speaker 3: very high tea.
Speaker 1: Today.
Speaker 3: We all got our tour on. Somebody forgot the pitchforks
Speaker 3: at home, so all we got is torches. So we'll
Speaker 3: flip the camera around. You got antipo up there on
Speaker 3: the hill.
Speaker 2: The video starts in the field where the crowd assembled,
Speaker 2: and it follows the march through the university grounds. The
Speaker 2: narrator is in good spirits for much of it. He's
Speaker 2: laughing as the men around him are working themselves into
Speaker 2: a frenzy. And for most of the march there are
Speaker 2: these isolated verbal encounters with individual people they pass on
Speaker 2: their route, but the campus is pretty empty. But as
Speaker 2: the march reaches the top of the stairs at the
Speaker 2: rotunda and begins to walk back down the steps into
Speaker 2: the plaza on the other side, the marchers know they
Speaker 2: aren't alone anymore.
Speaker 3: It's like a Disney l where he gets in the ride.
Speaker 1: That way.
Speaker 2: That's Augustus and Victus. Just as the counter protesters and
Speaker 2: the plaza come into view, he says, it's like a
Speaker 2: Disney ride. He's comparing this to the moment on a
Speaker 2: roller coaster where you're at the top of the hill
Speaker 2: looking down and you feel that rush of excitement knowing
Speaker 2: you're about to get to the best part of the ride.
Speaker 2: And the other voice, the one telling those counter protesters
Speaker 2: to look out, telling them they're outnumbered, that's Daniel Borden.
Speaker 2: He was never charged for this night, but he would
Speaker 2: eventually serve a few years in prison for the violent
Speaker 2: assault he committed the next morning. And as the video continues,
Speaker 2: the marchers fill the little plaza. You can see the
Speaker 2: crowd consciously and intentionally form a ring around the statue,
Speaker 2: around the people who are now trapped at its base.
Speaker 2: It wasn't an accident, it wasn't organic it was the plan.
Speaker 2: You can hear Richard Spencer's bodyguard directing the marchers standing
Speaker 2: right next to Invictus.
Speaker 1: Why why, Hi, why drop on this way, Block the
Speaker 1: eyes off, fill it in, block them off, trap them
Speaker 1: and after the rally Augustus Invictus may no secret of
Speaker 1: how he felt about it.
Speaker 2: He loved it, no regrets.
Speaker 4: So you know, the torchlight route, it was gorgeous, It
Speaker 4: was beautiful. The entire thing was an aesthetic and I
Speaker 4: regret nothing about it. It was perfectly done, It was
Speaker 4: falsely executed, and I would do it again.
Speaker 2: So, like I said, kind of a slam dunk starts
Speaker 2: by joking about how he has to make do with
Speaker 2: a torch because he doesn't have a pitchfork, marching with
Speaker 2: a crowd chanting explicitly racist, xenophobic, and anti Semitic slogans
Speaker 2: all along the route, seeing the counter protesters already standing
Speaker 2: in that public place, and making the conscious choice to
Speaker 2: surround them, continuing to hold that line as other members
Speaker 2: of the crowd engage in violence against the people you've trapped,
Speaker 2: ratifying the actions and the intent after the fact by
Speaker 2: saying you have no regrets, and you do it again.
Speaker 2: Testimony from one of those trapped counter protesters who says
Speaker 2: he feared for his life that night. It's pretty clear cut,
Speaker 2: and the jury thought so too. Augustus Invictus was convicted
Speaker 2: by a jury on that felony charge in Virginia in
Speaker 2: October of twenty twenty four. Coincidentally, it was the same
Speaker 2: week that Tyler Dykes reported to federal prison to begin
Speaker 2: serving his sentence for his January sixth conviction. But Augustus
Speaker 2: and Victus did not report to jail. He didn't have to.
Speaker 2: He had been out on bond since his arrest in
Speaker 2: the summer of twenty twenty three, and he was allowed
Speaker 2: to return home again after his conviction in January of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty The judge sentenced him to five years, but
Speaker 2: suspended the majority of that time, ordering him to serve
Speaker 2: just nine months and two weeks in the local jail.
Speaker 2: But again, he didn't go to jail. He went home.
Speaker 2: It's not that unusual to allow a defendant to delay
Speaker 2: their report date. It gives them a little bit of
Speaker 2: time to get their affairs in order. You don't get
Speaker 2: remanded directly into custody in most cases if you're out
Speaker 2: on bond already at the time of sentencing. There's not
Speaker 2: much harm in letting you go home that day, and
Speaker 2: his attorney made it very clear from the moment the
Speaker 2: verdict was in that they planned to appeal, so it
Speaker 2: was no surprise when they asked for an appeal bond,
Speaker 2: which the judge granted, allowing him to continue to kick
Speaker 2: out that report date while he was appealing his conviction.
Speaker 2: So all year checked in from time to time. I
Speaker 2: just added it to my mental list of dozens of
Speaker 2: other ongoing little matters that I check in on when
Speaker 2: I'm sitting at my computer. The sentencing order was finally
Speaker 2: entered in March, followed by the defense filings for their
Speaker 2: appeal to the State Court of Appeals, and he remained
Speaker 2: out on bond, and he kept practicing law. Despite rules
Speaker 2: governing the practice of law in Florida that specify no
Speaker 2: uncertain terms that suspension from the bar is automatic and
Speaker 2: immediate following a felony conviction, it didn't happen. The months
Speaker 2: dragged on. The appellate courts moved pretty slowly, but there
Speaker 2: was no indication that the Florida Bar intended to enforce
Speaker 2: their own rules. He continued practicing law for over a
Speaker 2: year after his conviction at trial. Again, the rules regulating
Speaker 2: the Florida Bar are remarkably straightforward on this subject, which
Speaker 2: isn't always a given from a rule book written by lawyers.
Speaker 2: If a lawyer in Florida is convicted of a felony,
Speaker 2: they are suspended from the bar immediately and automatically, even
Speaker 2: if they're appealing. The Conviction Rule three to seven point two,
Speaker 2: sub Section J says the suspension will remain in effect
Speaker 2: during any appeal of the determination or judgment of guilt
Speaker 2: of a felony offense in the criminal proceeding. But I
Speaker 2: guess someone of the bar was feeling generous because he
Speaker 2: was still practicing law. Just weeks after his own felony conviction.
Speaker 2: He was in federal court at the sentencing hearing of
Speaker 2: one of his clients, a January sixth defendant named Anna Letchnowski.
Speaker 2: Based on available records, it's not clear how much of
Speaker 2: her forty five day sentence she ever served. The President's
Speaker 2: pardons came not long after this. Augustus and Victus worked
Speaker 2: on Lichnowski's case as co counsul with his own lawyer.
Speaker 2: That's a confusing arrangement. Let me explain. She was indicted
Speaker 2: on January sixth charges in the summer of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: not long after Augustus. In Victus's own arrest here in Virginia.
Speaker 2: He then hired a Maryland attorney named Terrell Roberts to
Speaker 2: work on his criminal case, and a few weeks later
Speaker 2: they were both hired by Miss Lichnowski in her case. Now,
Speaker 2: Invictus isn't a member of the bar in DC Federal Court,
Speaker 2: and he hadn't shown any particular interest in j six
Speaker 2: cases before this, but it wasn't Terrell roberts first January
Speaker 2: sixth case, And given Invictus's apparently pretty dire financial situation,
Speaker 2: it kind of looks like he may have been paying
Speaker 2: his own lawyer by providing legal assistance on one of
Speaker 2: his other cases. But that's just me spitballing. I can't
Speaker 2: prove that. In the two years between his arrest and
Speaker 2: June of twenty twenty three and his suspension from the
Speaker 2: bar in October of twenty twenty five, he had a
Speaker 2: small but steady case load. Aside from the January sixth
Speaker 2: cases he worked with his own lawyer, he had a
Speaker 2: handful of clients with domestic violence charges, a few divorce cases,
Speaker 2: a dui case, pretty typical stuff. Perhaps there were others,
Speaker 2: but I don't have access to any fancy legal databases.
Speaker 2: I just love wasting my own time enough that I
Speaker 2: checked in with half the county court clerks in the
Speaker 2: state of Florida, according to statements he offered the court here.
Speaker 2: Some of those clients were referred to him through his
Speaker 2: volunteer work with his church. Obviously I couldn't tell you
Speaker 2: which case, as he worked pro bono, but it does
Speaker 2: seem to be true that at least some of these
Speaker 2: clients he's represented in the last two years were unconnected
Speaker 2: to white nationalist political causes, and that's noteworthy. I mean,
Speaker 2: today isn't the day we get all the way into it?
Speaker 2: Do you have my word? I'll cover the whole story eventually,
Speaker 2: but his career as an attorney has been a real
Speaker 2: roller coaster. After graduating from law school in twenty eleven,
Speaker 2: he passed the bar in several states in twenty twelve
Speaker 2: and was eventually admitted to practice in Massachusetts, Illinois, New York,
Speaker 2: and Florida. He was just shy of thirty, a proud
Speaker 2: father of four married and settling in as a defense
Speaker 2: attorney at his father's law firm outside of Orlando. By
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen, he was divorced. That spring, he dropped all
Speaker 2: of his clients and quit his job at his dad's law.
Speaker 2: He sent a letter to some of his former law
Speaker 2: school classmates announcing that he was a powerful, successful genius,
Speaker 2: but he'd grown bored of society and was going to
Speaker 2: leave it behind. And that's not an exaggeration. So many
Speaker 2: people got this letter, and the letter was so fucking
Speaker 2: weird that it was published in full and roundly mocked.
Speaker 2: In an article by Elie Mastahl on the blog Above
Speaker 2: the Law, the letter is addressed to the gray world
Speaker 2: of man. He's boastful, He's accomplished everything a man could
Speaker 2: dream of. He's better than you, and he wants you
Speaker 2: to know that. It reads, in part, witness Yee, the
Speaker 2: glory of my life. At twenty nine years of age,
Speaker 2: I have four children, each of whom should be the
Speaker 2: envy of every parent in the world. I have attained
Speaker 2: a baccalaureate degree in philosophy with honorsained a doctorate in
Speaker 2: law cum laude. I have acquired licenses in the profession
Speaker 2: of law in the states of New York, Illinois, and Florida.
Speaker 2: I am scheduled to acquire two more such licenses in
Speaker 2: North Carolina and Massachusetts. I am editor in chief of
Speaker 2: a poetry journal. I run an independent publishing company. I
Speaker 2: have opened my own law office in downtown Orlando. I
Speaker 2: am an MBA candidate, and I have accomplished a few
Speaker 2: other things that will remain off the record for now.
Speaker 2: I am of genius, intellect and cultured, well educated and creative,
Speaker 2: well mannered and refined. I am God's gift to humankind
Speaker 2: where the English language is concerned. I also happen to
Speaker 2: have a basic knowledge of Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, and Italian.
Speaker 2: I am musical and artistic. I am athletic and possessed
Speaker 2: of militant self discipline. I am many other things. I
Speaker 2: have a Cadillac and a poodle, multiple computers, and a
Speaker 2: personal library. I live in an apartment downtown right across
Speaker 2: the street from the courthouse. I have been to Paris
Speaker 2: and Vancouver, to Cairo and Dubrovnik, to Mexico City and Syracusa.
Speaker 2: I dress better than all of you, pronounce my words perfectly,
Speaker 2: and have a winning professional handshake. I am everything you
Speaker 2: ever wanted to be. I mean, can you argue with that?
Speaker 2: A Cadillac and a poodle and an apartment. But he's
Speaker 2: sick of it. He's so sick of this world, and
Speaker 2: the world makes him sick. He has nothing but contempt
Speaker 2: for it. He renounces his law license, his diplomas, his Catholicism,
Speaker 2: his citizenship, and all of his material possessions. He wants
Speaker 2: none of it. He's walking away, and he ends the
Speaker 2: letter with this, hear, ye, my final words in peacetime.
Speaker 2: I have prophesied for years that I was born for
Speaker 2: a great war. If I did not witness the coming
Speaker 2: of the Second American Civil War, I would begin it myself.
Speaker 2: Mark well, that day is fast coming upon you. On
Speaker 2: the new moon of May, I shall disappear into the wilderness.
Speaker 2: I will return bearing revolution, or I will not return
Speaker 2: at all. War be unto the ends of the earth.
Speaker 2: Augustus Stulenvictus or Land of Florida, USA, twentieth of April
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen. Some of the people who got this letter
Speaker 2: emailed it to a funny blog about news in the
Speaker 2: legal profession, but some of them called the FBI. According
Speaker 2: to his self published memoir about this time in his life.
Speaker 2: He then drove out to the mountains and Carolina wrote
Speaker 2: a goodbye letter to his family, which he left in
Speaker 2: his car, hoping whoever found the abandoned vehicle would drop
Speaker 2: it into a mailbox for him. He then spent several
Speaker 2: months hitchhiking across the country before returning home and resuming
Speaker 2: the life he'd just so dramatically renounced. He went back
Speaker 2: to being a lawyer from twenty fourteen until twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: and then he publicly announced that he was retiring from
Speaker 2: law to focus on politics. And by politics he meant
Speaker 2: both his run for US Senate as well as a
Speaker 2: punishing schedule of headlining white supremacist rallies all over the country.
Speaker 2: A year later, though, in twenty eighteen, he announced that
Speaker 2: he was unretiring from law to focus on taking clients
Speaker 2: he referred to as political dissidents. He wanted to be
Speaker 2: a movement lawyer, and he tried. He took on a
Speaker 2: couple of cases and he'd lost them all, but he
Speaker 2: made a good public show of being the hard rights
Speaker 2: go to guy for legal advice. He ghost wrote lawsuits
Speaker 2: for Nazis who were angry at the city of Charlottesville.
Speaker 2: He sent a cease and desist letter to a journalist
Speaker 2: on behalf of members of Adam Waffen, and he founded
Speaker 2: a nonprofit that solicited donations for members of the Rise
Speaker 2: Above movement who faced federal charges for beating counter protesters
Speaker 2: at several rallies in twenty seventeen, And like I said,
Speaker 2: I don't think you won a single case. By twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: he was dealing with his own problems. His father was
Speaker 2: arrested for sex trafficking. He was arrested for domestic violence,
Speaker 2: although the jury could not convict him at trial because
Speaker 2: the victim failed to appear. I think of him primarily
Speaker 2: as a movement lawyer, but that was really such a
Speaker 2: brief period of his life. Financial affidavits he filed in
Speaker 2: various cases of his own during this time period show
Speaker 2: he was reporting just one thousand dollars a month in
Speaker 2: income from his law office, And after twenty twenty, a
Speaker 2: surprising number of the cases I can find him working
Speaker 2: on are just divorce and domestic violence cases against guys.
Speaker 1: He knows.
Speaker 2: He's not trying to fight for white civil rights at
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court. He's just trying to make his own
Speaker 2: child support payments when he was arrested on the charge
Speaker 2: out of Virginia. In June of twenty twenty three, he
Speaker 2: filed a motion on behalf of one of his divorce
Speaker 2: clients from jail, requesting a modification of the case schedule.
Speaker 2: The first few paragraphs of the motion are pretty standard.
Speaker 2: You know, we need more time to conduct these depositions,
Speaker 2: We need more time for discovery. Both parties are comfortable
Speaker 2: extending the deadline. And then, almost as an afterthought, he
Speaker 2: adds quote respondent's counsel was arrested and detained on false
Speaker 2: charges in relation to a Virginia political rally and is
Speaker 2: currently an Orange County awaiting extradition to Virginia. Respondent's counsel
Speaker 2: anticipates being released by the end of July. That motion
Speaker 2: was granted, and he was indeed out on bond by
Speaker 2: the end of July twenty twenty three, but not before
Speaker 2: he missed a hearing in a domestic violence case against
Speaker 2: one of his other clients. That particular client must not
Speaker 2: have been too upset that his lawyer didn't show him
Speaker 2: to court, because that man, after being convicted of strangulation
Speaker 2: and witness tampering, hired Augustus and Victus again, this time
Speaker 2: to represent him in a movement case. Jason Brown was
Speaker 2: one of four members of the anti Semitic group, the
Speaker 2: Goham Defense League, who were arrested for hanging swastika banners
Speaker 2: from a highway overpass near Orlando. One of those four defendants,
Speaker 2: Amanda Rains, cut her losses and pled guilty. The the
Speaker 2: other three are still hoping to depose Governor Ron DeSantis
Speaker 2: as part of their case. They feel the state of
Speaker 2: Florida is being unconstitutionally unfair to Nazis. Aside from those
Speaker 2: Goham Defense League cases, though, he wasn't really trying to
Speaker 2: bolster his reputation as a movement lawyer by taking on
Speaker 2: high profile white rights cases anymore. Being a movement lawyer
Speaker 2: got him a lot of attention, but you can't pay
Speaker 2: your rent if you only take movement cases. And based
Speaker 2: on a brief suspension of his driver's license, he was
Speaker 2: getting behind on child support. Shortly after his arrest, he
Speaker 2: was working on one other white civil rights case. He
Speaker 2: had a client who felt he'd been fired from his
Speaker 2: job as a baggage handler for American Airlines. Simply for
Speaker 2: being white. But in Victus messed up the paperwork and
Speaker 2: missed a deadline to correct it the appeal, so it
Speaker 2: was dismissed a technicality, I guess, But I think even
Speaker 2: if he'd filed the paperwork correctly, the Eleventh Circuit would
Speaker 2: not have ruled in their favor. I mean, first of all,
Speaker 2: the client hadn't sought the proper administrative remedy through his
Speaker 2: union and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. But even if
Speaker 2: you set all of that aside, even if everything had
Speaker 2: been done correctly procedurally, I think the whole situation had
Speaker 2: less to do with anti white racism and more to
Speaker 2: do with the fact that you can't refer to your
Speaker 2: black coworker using the N word in the work group chat.
Speaker 2: So that case was dismissed. And these swastika banner cases
Speaker 2: were moving pretty slowly and Augustus and Victus seemed mostly
Speaker 2: focused on his own problems. There was an ongoing battle
Speaker 2: in the court with his second ex wife, a custody
Speaker 2: battle in New Jersey with a different woman, his own
Speaker 2: lawsuit against various Florida law enforcement agencies alleging a conspiracy
Speaker 2: against him, his own lawsuit against that woman in New Jersey,
Speaker 2: his lawsuit against a different woman that he had a
Speaker 2: sexual relationship with during his marriage, His attempts to get
Speaker 2: his computer back from a police evidence locker because he
Speaker 2: was using it in the living room at his dad's
Speaker 2: house when that house got raided the day his father
Speaker 2: was arrested for sex trafficking. I mean, he had a
Speaker 2: lot going on. Even one of those divorce cases he
Speaker 2: was working on was a little bit personal. He took
Speaker 2: great offense when opposing counsel accused him of having a
Speaker 2: romantic relationship with his client, but if you read the
Speaker 2: filings closely, he doesn't actually deny it. But he also
Speaker 2: doesn't mention that in addition to being her divorce lawyer,
Speaker 2: he features prominently in her upcoming wedding as the groom.
Speaker 2: So he's busy focusing on his own problems, which is
Speaker 2: why I was so surprised to see his name on
Speaker 2: a brand new lawsuit filed in June of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: That lawsuit was the subject of an episode of this
Speaker 2: show back in June. The complaint is, I mean, you
Speaker 2: can listen to the episode, but this short version is
Speaker 2: it is consistent with the kinds of legal work I've
Speaker 2: seen from him in the past. Right, he doesn't win cases,
Speaker 2: But in Enrique Tario, Ethan Norden, Zachary Real, Dominic Pozzola,
Speaker 2: and Joe Biggs want the United States government to pay
Speaker 2: the Proud Boys one hundred million dollars as an apology
Speaker 2: for being so mean to them about the whole sedition thing.
Speaker 2: It's a stupid lawsuit, but we live in stupid times,
Speaker 2: so there is a non zero chance that the government
Speaker 2: will simply nod and agree to a settlement that puts
Speaker 2: millions of dollars into the hands of the leadership of
Speaker 2: an extremist organization. The betting odds are on that specifically,
Speaker 2: but I imagine the kind of cut of that settlement
Speaker 2: their lawyer would get made it a pretty attractive gamble. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: for Augustus and Victus, he'll never see a dime of
Speaker 2: any potential payout to the Proud Boys, at least, not
Speaker 2: anything official, nothing on the books as far as attorney's fees.
Speaker 2: He was initially removed from the case back in June
Speaker 2: when the judge noticed that he wasn't allowed to practice
Speaker 2: in the federal court after his conviction, but He was
Speaker 2: inexplicably able to get himself readmitted to the bar in
Speaker 2: the Middle District of Florida a month later, but that
Speaker 2: victory was short lived. He was finally formally suspended from
Speaker 2: practicing in the state of Florida in October, and he
Speaker 2: was forced to withdraw representation from all of his active cases,
Speaker 2: including this one. The Florida bar finally made their move
Speaker 2: in October after the Virginia Court of Appeals dismissed his
Speaker 2: appeal in his criminal case. I didn't bother asking the
Speaker 2: State Court of Appeals for a copy because I have
Speaker 2: a pretty good idea what arguments they intended to use
Speaker 2: on appeal based on the hours and hours of rambling
Speaker 2: about what I sat through before the trial. I'm curious, though,
Speaker 2: how the appellate judge would have responded to the powerful
Speaker 2: argument that a lit torch is not a burning object.
Speaker 2: I wonder if they planned to put on their PowerPoint
Speaker 2: presentation about transitive verbs again. I found it tremendously unconvincing
Speaker 2: in pre trial hearings, but unfortunately for every one, the
Speaker 2: appeal wasn't even heard. The Virginia Court of Appeals did
Speaker 2: not end up weighing in on whether or not a
Speaker 2: wall of flames is free speech under the First Amendment,
Speaker 2: or whether something that is on fire can be legally
Speaker 2: said to be burning. Hearings on this matter before the
Speaker 2: trial culminated in the prosecution putting the local fire marshal
Speaker 2: on the stand to offer his expert opinion on whether
Speaker 2: something that was previously on fire could be called burnt.
Speaker 2: The fire marshal said yes for the record, but we
Speaker 2: never did get a semi auititian, a linguist, a physicist,
Speaker 2: or a poet to weigh in under oath on the
Speaker 2: nature of fire. Ultimately, the appeal was filed improperly, something
Speaker 2: of a theme in looking at a decade of Augustus
Speaker 2: and Victus's practice of law. He and his attorney failed
Speaker 2: to get their paperwork into the court on time, which
Speaker 2: is an automatic dismissal. A subsequent petition for rehearing was
Speaker 2: promptly denied, and there's no indication on the record that
Speaker 2: he filed a petition for rehearing on bunk or a
Speaker 2: petition to the State Supreme Court, And at this point
Speaker 2: any deadline for those filings would have passed. So if
Speaker 2: you're just looking at the State Court of Appeals case
Speaker 2: management system online. This case is over, so I'm not
Speaker 2: sure what he might have been referring to when he
Speaker 2: told a judge in Florida last month that he still
Speaker 2: expects to prevail in his appeal sometime in the spring
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: What appeal.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine that telling an outright lie to the
Speaker 2: court is something you would do if your goal is
Speaker 2: to avoid permanent disbarment. So maybe he's still got a
Speaker 2: trick up his sleeve in the appeal. The Court of
Speaker 2: Appeals doesn't have the best online docket, so I guess
Speaker 2: it's possible that there's something there that I just don't see.
Speaker 2: The automatic dismissal for missing a deadline is a bit harsh,
Speaker 2: so maybe that's the point of contention. Maybe there is
Speaker 2: some process for appealing that decision in particular. It is
Speaker 2: unclear to me, and I did ask several practicing attorneys
Speaker 2: in Virginia and they couldn't tell me either, So I'll
Speaker 2: just keep waiting. Augustus in Victus is due back in
Speaker 2: court in Albemarle County, Virginia in February of twenty twenty
Speaker 2: six for a hearing that if there's any sanity to
Speaker 2: this process should result in the judge setting a date
Speaker 2: for him to begin serving his sentence. Even if he
Speaker 2: does find a way to get a second bite at
Speaker 2: the Apple and the State Court of Appeals, there's no
Speaker 2: reason the County Court should continue to extend that appeal Pond,
Speaker 2: considering the appeal has been dead since October. He's lucky
Speaker 2: enough to have gotten the hearing scheduled so many months out.
Speaker 2: The court granted his request to schedule it after January ninth.
Speaker 2: He was so insistent about that, not just in January
Speaker 2: or in February. It had to be after January ninth.
Speaker 2: And he didn't say why. I'm not sure why he
Speaker 2: wouldn't just tell the judge he couldn't afford to miss
Speaker 2: his own wedding. When he does finally begin his nine
Speaker 2: and a half month sentence, he can expect to serve
Speaker 2: about six months of it, typically, assuming he doesn't have
Speaker 2: any conduct violations. For now, at least, he's still out
Speaker 2: on bond and he can't practice law. With the wedding
Speaker 2: just weeks away, it's probably too late to warn his
Speaker 2: wife to be that Lake Rose makes great enameled cast iron,
Speaker 2: but their stainless steel pots are really nothing special. You're
Speaker 2: just paying for the brand you should have registered for
Speaker 2: the old clad if you ask me. Then again, if
Speaker 2: you'd ask me, I probably would have advised against most
Speaker 2: of what's going on here. With jail on the horizon
Speaker 2: and his career in shambles, Perhaps he too will pivot
Speaker 2: to politics now that he has nothing else to do,
Speaker 2: and it wouldn't actually be his first time. But I'll
Speaker 2: save the story of his Senate campaign for another day.
Speaker 2: His suspension from the bar was an update I couldn't
Speaker 2: let pass us by without telling you about it affects
Speaker 2: that proud boy lawsuit that there was a whole episode about.
Speaker 2: But this is just a tiny peek into the life
Speaker 2: of a very weird little guy. And if I don't
Speaker 2: end up writing at least a couple of episodes about him,
Speaker 2: I'll have wasted all those hours I spent tracking down
Speaker 2: a physical copy of the novel he self published under
Speaker 2: a pseudonym back when he still thought he was a
Speaker 2: very powerful wizard. Next year, I promise weird little guys
Speaker 2: to see production of Polsone Me and iHeartRadio. It's researched,
Speaker 2: written and recorded by me. Molly Coner. Our executive producers
Speaker 2: are Sophie Lichtman and Robert Evans. The show is edited
Speaker 2: by the wildly talented Rory Gaikan. The theme music was
Speaker 2: composed by Brad Dickard. You can email me at Ridle
Speaker 2: Guys Podcast at gmail dot com. I will definitely read it,
Speaker 2: but I probably won't answer it. It's nothing personal. You
Speaker 2: can exchange conspiracy theories about the show with other listeners
Speaker 2: on the Weird Little Guys subreddit. Just don't post anything
Speaker 2: that's going to make you one of my Weird Little
Speaker 2: Guys