The plaintiffs filed a motion last month that raises questions about Mr. Schoep’s continued ties to the organization he said he has left. In a deposition, Burt Colucci, the new National Socialist Movement leader, said he still exchanged regular text messages with Mr. Schoep. In one exchange in October, Mr. Schoep warned Mr. Colucci that someone making threats against him may have been a federal informant trying to entrap him, according to the motion.

Mr. Schoep said in an interview that Mr. Colucci had asked him if he knew anything about the threats, and he was simply assuring his former comrade that he had nothing to do with them.

Critics say Mr. Schoep is simply trying escape legal liability, but he contends his new life has nothing to do with the lawsuits, and that he has put himself in danger by renouncing his former ways.

Still, “when you’re America’s poster boy for Nazism for over two decades, that sticks,” said Brian Levin, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.

Some who have witnessed the racism that Mr. Schoep has promoted over the years wonder why he should be shown mercy and forgiveness when they have been made to suffer.

“Why do black people have to go through so much to redeem themselves?” asked Tanesha Hudson, a social justice activist and filmmaker from Charlottesville who was protesting against the rally. “And yet, here he is, a white nationalist. It’s OK for him to do what he did then say he’s a changed man, and we’re supposed to be OK with that.”

Mr. Schoep, 46, recruited an untold number of people, including teenagers, into his organization. The National Socialist Movement, or N.S.M., grew to 61 chapters in 35 states under Mr. Schoep, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a legal advocacy group.