A nationally known white supremacist and influencer will be back in court this month to face a battery charge for allegedly pepper-spraying a woman who visited his home to confront him about an inflammatory social post he made following Donald Trump’s election win.
Nick Fuentes was arrested and charged with misdemeanor battery on Nov. 27 and released the same day with an order to return to court in December.
The woman he’s accused of pepper-spraying filed a criminal complaint alleging the incident happened on Nov. 10 in Berwyn, Illinois, the Chicago Sun-Times first reported.
According to court documents, 57-year-old Maria Rose told police that an X post Fuentes posted on Election Day prompted her visit to the 26-year-old’s home. In that viral tweet, which caused a firestorm online, Fuentes posted, “Your body. My choice. Forever,” referring to reproductive rights.
Several of his critics, who were enraged by the post, doxxed Fuentes and leaked his home address online.
Rose found this information and decided to pay Fuentes a visit after learning that she lived just 10 minutes away from his home.
She told the Sun-Times that when she approached his home, a passerby encouraged her to ring the doorbell.
“I didn’t expect he was going to answer the door, but if he did, I was going to ask him, ‘What are you thinking posting that kind of hateful, violent rhetoric to your giant platform?’” she said.
She told police that when she approached Fuentes’ front door, he came out of his house, pepper-sprayed her, and then pushed her on the ground. Rose recorded and later posted video of the encounter which shows Fuentes saying, “Get the f–k out of here,” before taking her phone and dropping it inside his home.
A police report filed by another woman on Nov. 11, who was driving by Fuentes’ home at the time of Rose’s visit, states that she saw a man shove a woman.
After police were called, officers spoke to Rose and Fuentes separately.
Fuentes reportedly told police that people began sending him death threats and “showing up to his house unannounced” after he made a “political joke online.” He said the visits and threats left him “in fear for his life.” However, he eventually “became uncooperative” in his discussion with police and refused to address the altercation with Rose.
Police reported that in their conversation with Rose, she reportedly had “watery eyes” but no visible physical injuries. They also retrieved her phone and returned it to her.
After Fuentes’ arrest, he posted his mugshots online. Rose also took to Facebook to threaten civil action against Fuentes, posting, “It. Is. On. 🔥🔥🔥 PS — Civil case pending.”
Fuentes’ next court appearance is scheduled for Dec. 19.
The far-right provocateur and Holocaust denier began building his presence online after dropping out of Boston University in 2017 after he participated in the deadly ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which neo-Nazi sympathizers were protesting the removal of the statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee.
In 2021, following the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, Fuentes went on his podcast and said he thought the riot was “awesome and so was Trump,” adding, “Trump was awesome because he was racist. Trump was awesome because he was sexist. The only thing that Trump wasn’t awesome for was being anti-Semitic. He wasn’t anti-Semitic. … People have got to get racist, time to get real.”
In another podcast episode Fuentes published in 2023, he shared fantasies about Black people being killed in various ways, also saying that would be “awesome.”
The 26-year-old once dined with Trump and Kanye West at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in November 2022 as Trump was gearing up for a second presidential run. However, Fuentes did not endorse him in the 2024 election, stating that, “Without serious changes, we are headed for a catastrophic loss.”
