ATLANTA _ Four militant white nationalists from California were arrested by federal authorities Tuesday on charges that they traveled to Virginia with the intent to incite a riot and commit violence at last year's deadly far-right rallies in Charlottesville.
Thomas Cullen, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, announced that charges had been filed against Benjamin Drake Daley, 25, of Redondo Beach; Thomas Walter Gillen, 34, of Redondo Beach; Michael Paul Miselis, 29, of Lawndale; and Cole Evan White, 24, of Clayton. All four were set to appear in federal court in Los Angeles on Tuesday afternoon.
The four are all members of the so-called Rise Above Movement, a white supremacist group based in Southern California that espouses anti-Semitism, promotes "clean living" and meets regularly in public parks to train in physical fitness, boxing and other street fighting techniques, according to the affidavit.
Last August, the four California men traveled to Charlottesville, the affidavit says, to join hundreds of other white nationalists at a rally organized by Richard Spencer, the leader of a white supremacist think tank, to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
The defendants came to the rally prepared to engage in physical violence, having taped their fists "in the manner of boxers or MMA style fighters," the affidavit says. Photographic and video evidence, the affidavit alleges, shows Daley and other white nationalists from California punching, kicking and head-butting counterprotesters, including an African-American man, two females and a minister wearing a clerical collar.
"They were essentially serial rioters," Cullen said. "This wasn't the lawful exercise of First Amendment rights. These guys came to Charlottesville to commit violent acts."
Each defendant has been charged with one count of conspiracy to violate the federal riots statute and one count of violating the federal riots statute. If convicted, each faces up to 10 years in prison, prosecutors said.
On Aug. 11, the group marched through the University of Virginia campus, carrying torches and chanting "Blood and Soil!" and "White Lives Matter." The next day, more clashes erupted when hundreds of white supremacists assembled for a "Unite the Right" rally in downtown Charlottesville. Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal, was killed when a man rammed his car into a crowd of anti-racism protesters. Nineteen other protesters were injured.
The charges against the four California men are not related to Heyer's death. The suspected driver, James Alex Fields Jr., 21, of Maumee, Ohio, was charged in June with federal hate crimes, including one count of a hate crime act that resulted in Heyer's death and 28 counts of hate crime causing bodily injury. Fields, who has pleaded not guilty, is also charged under Virginia law with murder and other crimes.
The four men had previously engaged in acts of violence at political rallies in Huntington Beach, Berkeley and San Bernardino, prosecutors said. In March 2017, RAM members engaged in violence at a Make America Great Again rally in Huntington Beach, according to the affidavit. A protester opposing Trump allegedly doused a female organizer of the event with pepper spray, sparking a brawl that led to several arrests.
Group members also engaged in violence in Berkeley last year in April, at a "Patriots Day" rally. Fistfights broke out between pro-President Donald Trump demonstrators and counterprotesters, and fireworks and smoke bombs were thrown into the crowd. A few demonstrators were doused with pepper spray.
A relatively small group made up of about 20 members, the Rise Above Movement is active online through mainstream social networking platforms, according to Joanna Mendelson, a senior investigative researcher with the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism. The ADL began documenting the group, which presents itself on its website as the "premier MMA (mixed martial arts) club of the Alt-Right," in 2016.
"Rise Above Movement is essentially a white supremacist organization that operates like an alt-right fight club," Mendelson said. "They romanticize themselves as these foot soldiers to fend off against the elements that threaten their white existence."
Although primarily headquartered in Southern California, especially in Orange County, the group has roamed the state.
The ADL said it was familiar with three of the four men listed in the arrest warrant, but did not recognize White's name.
Daley, who is listed as a leader in the group and is featured prominently in the group's recruitment videos, has used social media to promote anti-Semitic cartoons and conspiracy theories about Jewish control of the banking, media and legal systems, according to the ADL.
"These arrests signify a larger law enforcement concern into the activities of these white supremacist organizations operating in Southern California," Mendelson said. "As heinous as it may be, their ideology is certainly protected. But when individuals in these groups are inspired by their rhetoric to commit real world violence, it's of great concern. We applaud law enforcement for focusing on this organization and we're here to help in any way we can."
At least one of the defendants has a criminal record. In 2014, Daley was convicted of carrying a concealed weapon. According to L.A. Superior Court Records, after pleading no contest, he was sentenced to seven days in jail. In 2015, he was convicted of driving without a license and also pleaded no contest. Charges were dismissed for not having a dog license and, separately, not having some working lights on his vehicle.
While Democrats and Republicans denounced the violence and the white supremacist views at the Charlottesville rally, Trump provoked nationwide outrage when he suggested that both sides _ the white nationalists and the counterprotesters _ were to blame for the violence.
"You had a group on one side that was bad," Trump said. "And you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. And nobody wants to say that, but I'll say it right now."
After the Charlottesville incident, anti-racism advocates accused local law enforcement of not acting swiftly enough to stem the violence or to arrest a group of white men who were videotaped beating a black counterprotester, DeAndre Harris.
Several white nationalists have since been found guilty of violently beating Harris. In August, Jacob Scott Goodwin, of Arkansas, was sentenced to eight years in prison and Alex Michael Ramos, of Georgia, was sentenced to six years in prison after being convicted of malicious wounding for their roles in the beating of Harris in a parking garage.
A third white nationalist, Daniel Patrick Gordon, of Ohio, was found guilty in May of malicious wounding for his role in the attack, but he has yet to be sentenced.
In August, a judge sentenced Richard Wilson Preston, 52, a white demonstrator, to four years in prison for discharging a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school, a crime punishable by up to 10 years in jail.
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