Thomas Rousseau was arrested in Texas on Virginia charges of burning an object “to intimidate” at the notorious Unite the Right march on the UVA campus
Thomas Rousseau, founder of the fascist group Patriot Front, has been arrested in Texas on a Virginia warrant for a charge of burning an object with the intent to intimidate.
The burning object in question is apparently a tiki torch. The case is connected to the 2017 Charlottesville hate rallies, known as Unite the Right, in which white nationalist demonstrators swarmed the University of Virginia campus carrying the torches and shouting Nazi slogans like “blood and soil,” as well as antisemitic chants like “Jews will not replace us.”
Rousseau was a prominent participant at the events Unite the Right, which he attended as a leader of a fascist group called Vanguard America. In a 2020 court deposition, Rousseau recalled that he’d held a torch at the tiki rally “for a while until I put it out after — after a bit.”
Rousseau was booked into McLennan County Jail in Waco, Texas, and had his mug shot taken on Feb. 23. Jail records show him still in custody on a charge shorthanded as “BURN OBJECT TO INTIMIDATE.” A Telegram post by Patriot Front details that Patriot Front “leader” Rousseau was arrested on “a felony warrant out of Charlottesville, Virginia.” It alleges that Rousseau’s arrest is the product of a “seven-year witch hunt by politically motivated prosecutors, stemming from the events that transpired at the Unite the Right rally in 2017.” The post blasts the charge against Rousseau as “fabricated.”
Under Virginia law, burning an object with the intent to intimidate is a Class 6 felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. The commonwealth attorney for Albemarle County, Virginia — where UVA is located — brought similar charges against a host of tiki torch-carrying marchers last August. A message seeking to confirm the same commonwealth attorney is behind the new charge against Rousseau was not immediately returned.
A Texas lawyer who has represented Rousseau in other legal matters tells Rolling Stone he “will not be representing him with respect to this charge” and added he’s not authorized to make statements on Rousseau’s behalf.
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Vanguard America, the organization Rousseau represented at the Unite the Right rally, is classified as a “Neo-Nazi” group by the Anti-Defamation League. Vanguard America’s black-and-white logos included the fasces — a bundle of wood and an ax — from which the word fascist is derived. Members also sometimes used the Nazi Sonnenrad as a symbol, according to ADL.
Vanguard America became radioactive after Unite the Right due to its public association with James Fields, who is now serving life in prison for plowing a car into a crowd of anti-racist counter-demonstrators, killing Heather Heyer. Fields reportedly rallied, earlier that day, with Vanguard America, and was even photographed holding a distinctive, Vanguard America shield. In the aftermath of Fields’ deadly attack, which wounded 30, a Vanguard America spokesperson vigorously denied Shields was an official member of the group.
The organization soon splintered, with Rousseau forming Patriot Front as a successor group, using some of Vanguard America’s digital assets. Vanguard America operated a website called bloodandsoil.org, for example, which now forwards visitors to the Patriot Front website.
Patriot Front promotes a nearly identical white nationalist agenda, but it adds a patriotic veneer to the fascism, seeking to make its far-right ideas more palatable to young recruits. “Patriot Front simply turned a black-and-white logo with the fasces into a into a red-white-and-blue logo with fasces,” Kris Goldsmith, founder of the veteran-run, anti-fascist investigative nonprofit Project Butler, tells Rolling Stone. “That is the only substantial difference. It is still led by Rousseau. It still has the same ideology.” Butler’s group issued a 238-page report on Patriot Front in 2022, intended as a road map for law enforcement and prosecutors to bring charges against the group, notorious for public vandalism, and targeting of minority groups.
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Rousseau in particular has proven difficult to pin down, legally. The Patriot Front founder was arrested, for example, on “conspiracy to riot” charges in June 2022, after dozens of Patriot Front members riding in the back of a U-Haul truck were busted by cops. The police action allegedly disrupted the group’s plan to descend on an LGBT Pride event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. While many Patriot Front foot soldiers were convicted last summer, the proceedings against Rousseau dragged on, until a local judge ultimately dismissed the charges against him in November.
The current path forward for Rousseau is uncertain. Virginia authorities will likely seek to have him extradited to the commonwealth — where even more trouble awaits. Rousseau reportedly failed to contest a lawsuit brought against him and Patriot Front, alleging the group defaced a statue of tennis great Arthur Ashe in Richmond in late 2021. A civil judgment, against which Rousseau is no longer allowed to mount a defense, is pending. “I expect the costs associated with a default judgment,” Goldsmith says, “is not going to go well for him.”
