CLAY COUNTY, Fla. – A Middleburg man has pleaded no contest in the 2017 beating of a black man in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Tyler Davis, 50, was arrested Jan. 24, 2018, on a Virginia warrant charging him with malicious wounding in the beating of DeAndre Harris, which took place during the infamous white supremacist rally that turned violent.
Davis entered an Alford plea on Friday, according to the Charlottesville Circuit Court website. A pre-sentencing investigation will determine his sentence.
The malicious wounding charge can carry a sentence of up to 20 years in a Virginia prison.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Davis is a member of the League of the South, a white nationalist neo-Confederate organization based out of Alabama.
Clay County deputies pulled Davis over last year on Buggy Whip Trail near his Middleburg home and arrested him.
Davis was the fourth person to be arrested in connection with the Aug. 12, 2017, assault of Harris.
Harris was beaten by six men in an attack in a parking garage next to the police headquarters during the Unite the Right rally. Heather Heyer, 32, was killed in a separate incident when a car plowed into a group of counterprotesters.
Harris, 20, was later accused of injuring a white nationalist the same day that he was beaten. He turned himself in on a charge of unlawful wounding and was released on bond, the Charlottesville Police Department said.