Feds want new charges against ‘Crying Nazi’ Christopher Cantwell

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cantwell pepperspray
“Crying Nazi” Christopher Cantwell is seeing peppery spraying a counter-protester during the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville. Cantwell was later convicted on assault and battery charges for pepper-spraying people during the violence. Courtesy Photo

KEENE, NH — Keene’s “Crying Nazi” Christopher Cantwell could face additional federal charges once the COVID-19 pandemic lets up enough to allow for grand juries again, according to court records.

Cantwell, 39, is currently behind bars awaiting trial on federal charges of interstate extortion and making threatening interstate communications after he was arrested by federal agents in January at his home in Keene. Investigators found Cantwell’s cache of 17 guns and numerous drugs at his Keene home, according to court records.

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Image of Chris Cantwell from documents filed by federal prosecutors

Assistant United States Attorney John Davis wrote in a motion filed in the federal court in Concord seeking more time before the scheduled June trial that the government wants to pursue new charges against the white nationalist podcaster related to the original charges.

“Since the (original) indictment, the government has identified potential additional charges against the defendant related to the charged counts,” Davis wrote. “The government intends to present the additional charges to a grand jury in a superseding indictment.”

The problem being that grand juries are not being convened in the federal courts during the current pandemic response. According to Davis, the soonest a grand jury could sit to hear the new charges would be June 10, after the scheduled June 2 trial. Davis is asking for an additional 30 days.

Cantwell’s charges stem from threats he allegedly made to a reputed member of another white supremacist organization, known as the Bowl Patrol. Bowl Patrol members had reportedly been cyber-bullying Cantwell and he was looking to retaliate. Cantwell was allegedly looking for identifying information on one of the members of the group known by the cyber nome de plume as Vic Mackey, and he allegedly threatened to rape the wife of another Bowl Patrol member if the information was not supplied, according to court records.

“So if you don’t want me to come and (expletive) your wife in front of your kids, then you should make yourself scarce[.] Give me Vic, it’s your only out,” Cantwell allegedly wrote on the messaging app Telegram.

Cantwell earned his moniker as the Crying Nazi after the Vice documentary on the “Unite the Right” rally in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia showed Cantwell crying when he learned there was a warrant out for his arrest.

Cantwell was convicted on two counts of assault and battery for using pepper spray on protestors at the “Unite the Right” protests where white supremacists gathered to oppose the removal of Confederate monuments. Cantwell was ordered to stay out of Virginia for five years as part of his sentence.

The “Unite the Right” rally saw one counter-protester murdered when white supremacists James Alex Fields Jr. drove his car into a crowd, killing Heather Heyer. Fields pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence.

About this Author

Damien Fisher

Damien Fisher is a freelance reporter and publisher of NHReporter.com