Jury reaches partial verdict in 'Unite The Right' civil trial, finds Charlottesville rally organizers liable for conspiracy

• The jury reached a partial verdict in the "Unite The Right" civil trial Tuesday.
• Nine plaintiffs sued 35 organizers of the August 2017 Charlottesville rallies, claiming they conspired to incite violence.

The jury in the "Unite The Right" civil trial reached a partial verdict on Tuesday, finding the rally's white supremacist organizers liable for conspiracy and awarding more than $25 million in damages to the plaintiffs.

Nine plaintiffs had sued 35 organizers of the August 2017 Charlottesville rallies in the case, alleging that they conspired to incite violence.

The jury sided with the plaintiffs on their claim that the organizers engaged in a civil conspiracy under Virginia law. All individual defendants in the case, including Richard Spencer and neo-Nazi Christpher Cantwell, were ordered to pay $500,000 in punitive damages related to the state conspiracy claim.

But after three days of deliberations, jurors could not reach a verdict on the plaintiffs' two federal conspiracy claims, concerning whether the organizers conspired to commit racially motivated violence.

A group of white nationalists had protested the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville on August 11 and 12, 2017. James Fields drove his car into a group of counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer; others were injured in the chaos of the rally.

The jury sided with the plaintiffs on a claim concerning racial, religious, or ethnic violence and harassment, finding Fields liable. The plaintiffs were not awarded any punitive damages for the claim, but Fields was found liable and ordered to pay $6 million in damages for a claim of assault or battery. He was also found liable and ordered to pay an additional $6 million for a claim of emotional distress.

Fields is currently serving two life terms in prison for deliberately driving his car into the crowd at the rally.

Samantha Froelic, the ex-girlfriend of one of the organizers, had testified during the trial that some of those organizers had discussed the legality of hitting protesters with a car before the rally, claiming that a "handful" of the organizers believed it to be legal.

Natalie Romero, a former University of Virginia student who was injured in Fields' car attack, described the aftermath as looking like a "war scene" in her testimony at the trial. Romero alone was awarded more than $370,000 in compensatory damages on Tuesday.