He’d made a long trip from Texas, but neo-Nazi podcaster Robert Warren Ray arrived in Charlottesville, Virginia, ready for blood. He wore a thick, unruly beard, glasses and a ball cap with a Texas flag. He delivered speeches. He threw punches. He unloaded pepper spray on counter-protesters. It was Aug. 12, 2017, and Ray was among the troves of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other far-rightists who had traveled to Virginia to rally against Charlottesville’s decision to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Dubbed “Unite the Right,” it was the largest white nationalist protest in years. The night before the protest, far-right marchers swarmed the University of Virginia, carried Tiki torches, attacked counter-protesters and chanted, “Jews will not replace us.” Robert Warren Ray has a long rap sheet, with charges from theft to assault.Smith County, Texas The next day, they again attacked counter-protesters, anti-fascists and community members around the city. By the time it was all said and done, a neo-Nazi had rammed his car into an anti-racist march, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring dozens. In the lead-up to the protest, Ray had done his best to rile up his audience at the Daily Stormer, the neo-Nazi podcast where he wrote and hosted a podcast known as “The Krypto Report.” The website was one of the most influential neo-Nazi blogs online, and Ray stood out as one of its loudest voices. Once on the ground in Charlottesville, he complained to a Vice reporter that the city was “run by Jewish communists and criminal n*s.” Later, he described himself as the Daily Stormer’s “man on the ground at events” and celebrated that white nationalists “greatly outnumbered the anti-white, anti-American filth,” referring to counter-protesters. “That which is degenerate in white countries will be removed,” he added. Backlash came swiftly. Lawsuits tied up the rally’s organizers, authorities charged some participants, and the resurgent far-right, which had clung to the coat tails of former President Donald Trump, found itself facing widespread opposition around the country. Protests had their permits pulled, events were nixed and speeches got dropped.
When far-right demonstrations did crop up, anti-fascists and other counter-protesters fought them in the streets. Meanwhile, federal authorities have clamped down on neo-Nazi groups believed of plotting violence, including some in North Texas. Nearly four years after Unite the Right, Ray is nowhere to be found. Known among neo-Nazis as “Azzmador,” the 54-year-old East Texan has been running from the law for years. Last September, a federal judge issued a bench warrant for Ray’s arrest. U.S. District Judge Norman Moon said Ray was in “total contempt” of court orders in a lawsuit against him and other Unite the Right participants and organizers. At the time, Ray had failed to appear for three video depositions. But Ray had already been on the lam for a while. In June 2018, a warrant for his arrest was issued on a felony charge for his alleged use of pepper spray on counter-demonstrators during the march the night before Unite the Right. Contacted by the Observer, a clerk at the Albemarle County Circuit Court said the felony warrant was still outstanding and that Ray could, in theory, be extradited to Virginia if law enforcement anywhere in the country ran across him. Susan Corke, who oversees the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Intelligence Project, said Ray “was central in planning violence at the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017.” (…) Ray’s not alone in trying to outrun the law. Elliot Kline, another Charlottesville organizer, used to head Identity Evropa, a now-defunct white nationalist group. He refused to provide electronic devices and passwords requested by the court, leading the judge to find him in contempt and jailing him. “The Unite the Right violence wasn’t an accident or a clash between sides,” Spitalnick explained. “It was a meticulously planned, violent conspiracy to attack people based on their race, religion and willingness to defend the rights of others — down to online discussions of hitting protesters with cars.”
via dallasobserver: On the Run: Wanted for Charlottesville Violence, Texas Neo-Nazi Nowhere to be Found