White nationalist represents Proud Boys in lawsuit against federal government

A longtime white nationalist lawyer and organizer of the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally is representing several members of the Proud Boys in a $100 million lawsuit against the U.S. government.

Augustus Sol Invictus, 40, is a Florida-based lawyer representing five members of the Proud Boys who were previously convicted on charges related to the events of Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol. The members, who include former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, alleged that the government violated their constitutional rights while prosecuting them for their involvement in the attack.

The complaint describes federal law enforcement’s investigation into these events as “political prosecution” and an “egregious and systemic abuse of the legal system and the United States Constitution to punish and oppress political allies of President Trump.” It requests upward of $100 million in damages, in addition to 6% post-judgment interest.

On Inauguration Day, President Donald Trump commuted the sentences of four of the Proud Boys members — Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl, Joseph Biggs and Dominic Pezzola — whom Invictus and his co-counsel are representing. Tarrio, who along with Nordean, Rehl and Biggs was previously found guilty of seditious conspiracy, received a pardon.

In October, Invictus was convicted in Virginia of breaking a Klan-era law during a march the night before the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other extremists brandished tiki torches and shouted, “Jews will not replace us.” Given his long history with white nationalist activism, including with groups once affiliated with the Proud Boys, Invictus’ involvement in the case signals a convergence between groups with strong support from President Donald Trump’s movement and the right’s overt Nazi-supporting wing.

A long and chaotic history in the white nationalist movement

Invictus, born Austin Mitchell Gillespie, is a longtime member of the white nationalist movement. Before representing Tarrio and other members of the group, he was second in command in a self-described “tactical defense arm” of the Proud Boys known as the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights (FOAK). He attended the August 2017 Unite the Right rally and was scheduled as one of the headline speakers. The speeches never took place as the rally descended into violence.

In July 2023, Virginia authorities arrested and charged Invictus with one count of burning an object with the intent to intimidate in connection with his role in the torchlit march on the University of Virginia campus on Aug. 11, 2017, before Unite the Right. A jury in Albemarle County, where Charlottesville is located, found Invictus guilty in October 2024. A court sentenced him to five years in prison in January, with all but 9.5 months suspended, a local CBS News affiliate reported.  

State court records show that Invictus filed for appeal in March. He is currently fundraising for his appeal on GiveSendGo, a platform popular with the far right, and he has raised $300 of his $35,000 goal.

In 2017, victims of far-right violence at Unite the Right sued FOAK and more than a dozen of the event’s organizers, including Invictus. While Invictus did not appear at or participate in the trial, a federal court issued a default judgment against him in January 2023, finding that he violated Virginia’s hate crime statute. The same court also issued a default judgment against FOAK for violating a state civil conspiracy law.

Invictus has called the Nuremberg trials, where World War II-era Nazi leaders were held accountable for their crimes, a “kangaroo court.” He has also described Carl Schmitt, a Nazi legal theorist, as “one of my primary legal, political, intellectual, and philosophical influences,” according to prior reporting by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Elsewhere, he said that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was part of a “different breed of lesser men.”

In addition to his involvement in the white nationalist movement, police have arrested and jailed Invictus following multiple incidents involving alleged violence against women. In 2020, Invictus faced charges of kidnapping, domestic violence and possession of a weapon after a woman who said that she was his wife reported he had thrown her against a wall and held her at gunpoint, as Hatewatch previously reported. After being released on bond, police arrested him on charges of aggravated stalking after his wife reported that he had repeatedly harassed her.

A jury in South Carolina found Invictus not guilty in 2022 after the woman failed to appear at trial. Other women have accused Invictus of beating, threatening and harassing them, as Hatewatch previously reported, though the South Carolina incident marked the first time that he faced substantive charges.

Court records indicate that Invictus and his co-counsel filed the complaint on behalf of the Proud Boys on June 6. The case does not yet have a court date.

Photo illustration atop by the SPLC.