Elliott Kline, one of the main organizers of the Unite the Right rally, remains in custody after turning himself in to the U.S. Marshals Service on Monday for contempt of court.
Kline, who also is known as Eli Mosley, is one of several defendants in a high-profile federal lawsuit involving Charlottesville-area residents. The lawsuit targets organizers and participants of the deadly white supremacist rally, alleging a robust conspiracy to commit racist violence.
The arrest, an unusual move for a civil suit, comes after a series of escalating efforts to get Kline to turn over evidence to the suits’ plaintiffs that left the judge overseeing the case, U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon, incredulous.
Kline has been the subject of multiple court orders after he was first found to be in contempt of court in November for not complying with various discovery orders.
After Kline repeatedly failed to purge himself of contempt, Moon ordered him to turn himself in to custody until he met his discovery requirements. Kline was given the opportunity to avoid custody if he purged himself prior to Monday’s appearance, but in an order Friday, Moon found that Kline had declined to do so.
Repeatedly using variations of the word “inexplicable” to describe Kline’s actions, Moon criticized the defendant’s efforts, pointing again to claims from Kline that he only possesses one document responsive to discovery.
“Kline inexplicably has not ‘fully and completely’ responded to Plaintiffs’ first set of discovery requests,” Moon wrote. “Indeed, he has failed to correct several of the specific deficiencies noted in this Court’s prior order.”
“This Court continues to find that such omissions are not only significant in their own right, but further, in conjunction with Kline’s other omissions and failures to follow court orders, further demonstrate that Kline did not take serious his obligation to respond to Plaintiffs’ first set of discovery requests, raising the substantial prospect that Kline omitted other material information from his discovery responses,” Moon wrote.
Furthering their argument that Kline remains in contempt, the plaintiffs’ lawyers submitted a supplemental filing Monday alleging that Kline had failed to share an additional email address used to plan the rally.
According to the filing, Kline used this additional email address to communicate regarding Unite the Right, aiming to solicit materials that would be responsive to Plaintiffs’ discovery requests.
In a tweet shared by the plaintiffs, Kline, using the Eli Moseley alias, posted, “Email all reports to CvilleReports@gmail.com. Include ‘Police, Libel, Antifa, etc’ in subject line w/summary in body.”
“The existence of this fifth email address, which Kline has never identified to either Plaintiffs or the Court, confirms yet again that Kline’s responses to Plaintiffs’ Interrogatories and his testimony under oath were false,” the plaintiffs’ counsel wrote.
In the provided tweets, Kline requests people to send “raw footage” and “pictures and video evidence” to the email address, which the plaintiffs’ counsel argues undermines his claims he has only one responsive document.
Kline turned himself in to custody of the U.S. Marshals at noon Monday and, according to court documents, will remain in custody until another hearing is set and he is found to no longer be in contempt of court. He is being held at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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