White nationalist lawyer Augustus Sol Invictus, who helped organize the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was denied release on Friday as he awaits trial for charges of domestic violence, kidnapping and using a gun in commission of a crime. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 55 years in prison.
The charges against Invictus are the latest in a series of abuse allegations: HuffPost obtained 10 police reports documenting past incidents of violence and threats of violence — including three reports where victims accused Invictus of pointing a gun at them.
Invictus, who has said he is innocent, was arrested in December, after his wife Anna Invictus reported an instance of abuse to law enforcement. On Friday, she read a statement in court detailing years of alleged violence. During their six-year relationship, Augustus Invictus held her captive in a locked room for days, beat her, dragged her though the house, choked her until she passed out, threatened to kill her, and took away her phone so she couldn’t call for help, she alleged in the statement, which she authorized HuffPost to share publicly.
Augustus Invictus often beat her in the stomach and the head, where her bruises would be less visible, she wrote.
He used his status as a lawyer to threaten to take custody of their children, “effectively keeping me under his control,” Anna Invictus wrote in her statement. “My 13 year old daughter and I fear he will come into our home and kill me if he is granted bond.”
Augustus Invictus — who legally changed his name from Austin Gillespie to the Latin phrase for “majestic unconquered sun” — helped draft a political manifesto for the Charlottesville rally, which called for a white ethnostate, described Jews as ethnically distinct from Europeans, and warned of an “invasion” of refugees.
White supremacy is an inherently violent ideology and allegations that he abused those close to him were well documented by law enforcement.
Anna Invictus went to the police at least twice before the alleged assault in December that ultimately led to her husband’s arrest. She also witnessed him evade punishment after other women reported his alleged assaults to law enforcement. The collection of police reports obtained by HuffPost make clear that, according to his accusers, Augustus Invictus was an alleged serial predator who escaped justice for years.
In 2013, he sent a mass email to friends, colleagues and acquaintances announcing that he was embarking on a spiritual journey to launch “the Second American Civil War.” One recipient of the email was worried enough to alert police in Orlando, Florida, according to an incident report obtained by HuffPost.
After hitchhiking and praying in the desert, Augustus Invictus returned home to Florida, slaughtered a goat and drank its blood. He moved in with an old friend but their relationship quickly soured. In August 2014, the friend told an Orlando police officer that Augustus Invictus pointed a loaded gun at him in their living room, then claimed he had mistaken the roommate for an intruder. Another roommate noticed a sign above the fireplace labeled “House Rules.” The third rule was: “Trespassers Will Be Shot.”
Augustus Invictus shows up in police reports again in February 2016, when a woman told an Orlando police officer that he pointed a gun in her face after she asked him to leave her apartment. When the cops arrived, he claimed the woman picked the weapon up first and that he only took it out of her hands. Anna Invictus told the police she saw him holding a gun but she did not know who first picked it up. Police recovered a Taurus PT111 9mm Caliber handgun.
The woman who called the cops wanted to press charges but the police determined there wasn’t enough evidence, according to the incident report. The woman, whose name HuffPost is withholding, could not be reached for comment.
Anna and Augustus broke up soon after. She went to law enforcement in March 2016 after the breakup when Augustus Invictus texted her friend and said he was going to burn all of her possessions and shoot her on the spot, she told the police. She also said that he had “battered her numerous times over the last two years” but that she had never reported the violence, according to an Orlando Police Department report. The police referred the case to the state attorney’s office, but Anna Invictus never heard from prosecutors, she told HuffPost.
She eventually took him back but the alleged abuse quickly resumed. After a fight, Augustus Invictus came home from work and asked Anna Invictus if she was done being a “cunt,” according to an Altamonte Springs, Florida, police report from August 2016. When she tried to answer, he grabbed her by the neck until it was hard to breathe, she told the police. He then put his hand over her mouth and nose. It was still hard to breathe, she said. Then he hit her in the head with an open hand. He asked if she was done arguing with him; she said “yes” to make the violence stop.
Anna Invictus was willing to press charges but she had no visible injuries and Augustus Invictus denied the allegations, according to a comment by the state attorney’s office in the police report. “There would likely be conflicting testimony at trial. Without other corroborating evidence to support the allegation, it is unlikely that the State could overcome its burden of proving the case to the high burden of beyond a reasonable doubt,” the report read.
Part of the reason she didn’t have more evidence, Anna Invictus told HuffPost, is because Augustus Invictus regularly deleted her photos, text messages and emails — anything that could be used as proof of abuse.
In 2017, another woman told law enforcement that Augustus Invictus had physically and sexually abused her over the course of their 15-month relationship. The woman, whose name HuffPost is not disclosing, met Augustus Invictus in her senior year of high school, when he convinced her to join her school’s debate team, which he coached. He started having sex with her soon after.
The woman described to police a pattern of abuse similar to what his wife alleged in police reports. In October 2016, she said Augustus Invictus got mad at the woman for talking to her friends. He slapped her and covered her mouth and nose so that she could not breathe, she told an Altamonte Springs police officer. He then dragged her to the center of the room, and punched her in the side of the head, she alleged.
After Christmas, Augustus Invictus talked the woman into seeing him again, she told the police. But he quickly grew jealous again. He beat her, dragged her into a closet and choked her until she passed out, she told the police. “She thought he was holding a gun to her head, she said, but she was too scared to open her eyes.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now,” she recalled him saying, according to a police report.
Augustus Invictus eventually calmed down, threw a knife towards her and told her to “just go get in the bathtub and slit your wrist,” she alleged. When she got out of the closet, she saw he had a black handgun.
She suffered for months without going to law enforcement because, she told a police officer, Augustus Invictus “is a ‘high-powered’ attorney, has ties to white supremacist individuals, and knows everything about her, including where she is living now, her friends and family contact information, and her place of work.”
She finally decided to go to the police in March 2017 after she opened her Google calendar and saw that Invictus had scheduled an event for March 17: “Annihilate [her first name].”
When the detective investigating the case asked Augustus Invictus about the event, he claimed he was referring to exposing personal information about the woman rather than physically injuring her, an Altamonte Springs Police Department spokeswoman told HuffPost in 2017.
“Every time a woman took the risk of coming forward only to hear there wasn’t enough evidence, Anna Invictus said it reinforced that her best option was to sacrifice her own well-being and focus on taking care of her kids.”
HuffPost contacted Augustus Invictus in 2017 about the allegations. He responded in an email, “You are a Jew with an axe to grind against anyone who refuses to denounce the Alt-Right.”
After the accuser went to the police, Augustus Invictus threatened her with a defamation lawsuit unless she retracted her allegations. He and Anna Invictus denied the allegations and claimed that the accuser was an unreliable drug addict. At the time, Anna Invictus claimed the accuser was copying her own tactic of reporting false allegations to the police in an attempt to get back together with Augustus Invictus.
But the accuser never recanted. The police eventually recommended charges of domestic battery by strangulation and aggravated battery against Augustus Invictus. A spokesman for a state attorney’s office told HuffPost in 2017 that his office had mailed the woman two requests to meet but that she never responded. She told HuffPost she never received them.
Prosecutors decided they didn’t have enough evidence against him and declined to pursue prosecution.
Another woman told two different police departments that Augustus Invictus threatened to “wage holy war” against Ordo Templi Orientis if the religious group did not lift his excommunication. The woman believed the threat was credible because he was “known to be violent and erratic,” she told the police.
Every time a woman took the risk of coming forward only to hear there wasn’t enough evidence to do anything, Anna Invictus said it reinforced that her best option was to sacrifice her own well-being and focus on taking care of her kids.
But by December 2019, Anna Invictus had enough. They were living in South Carolina at the time and her husband returned home after being gone for weeks. He took Anna’s phone, turned it off, grabbed her by the neck, shoved her against a wall, held a gun to her forehead and demanded to know if she was cheating on him, she told HuffPost.
Augustus Invictus later told Anna Invictus to follow behind him in a car as they drove to Florida, she said. Once they arrived, she realized they had no money and nowhere to stay. With her bruises still visible, she found a way to get in contact with law enforcement.
Augustus Invictus was arrested in Florida and turned over to police in Rock Hill, South Carolina, where he awaits trial.