LA White Supremacist Charged With Political Rally Riot Conspiracy: DOJ

TORRANCE, CA — The main defendant in an indictment charging three SoCal men with being a part of a white supremacy extremist group involved in planning and engaging in riots at polities rallies across the state was extradited from Romania, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.

Huntington Beach resident Robert Paul Rundo, 33, was moved by special FBI agents from Romania to Hollywood Burbank Airport Tuesday evening. The Department of Justice reported that Rundo is a founding member of the Rise Above Movement and is currently in federal custody.

Rundo is expected to make his first court appearance Wednesday afternoon in the United States District Court in Los Angeles, along with two other defendants, Torrance resident Robert Boman, 30, and Redondo Beach resident Tyler Laube, 27.

All three defendants are charged with conspiracy to violate the Anti-Riot Act for their activities in connection with the Rise Above Movement, alternatively known as RAM.

According to the Department of Justice, RAM is a "white supremacist organization that represented itself publicly... as a combat-ready militant group of a new nationalist white supremacy and identity movement."

Rundo and Boman also face rioting charges, prosecutors said.

According to the federal indictment, the three men participated in recruiting RAM members, coordinating and participating in hand-to-hand and other combat training, traveling to political rallies to attack protestors and other persons, and publishing photographs and videos of violent acts to recruit other members for future events.

The indictment also claims that various members of RAM participated in attacks at political rallies in Huntington Beach on March 25, 2017; in Berkeley on April 15, 2017; and in San Bernardino on June 10, 2017.

"In the months following these events, the defendants allegedly trained for future events and celebrated their assaults, which included online posts with photos of RAM members assaulting people." the Justice Department said in a statement.

In June 2019, a Santa Ana federal judge dismissed the indictment against Rundo and the other defendants, finding that the federal riots act -- under which they were charged -- "is unconstitutionally overbroad in violation of the First Amendment."

In March 2021, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal and criminal charges were reinstated.

Both the conspiracy and rioting charges carry sentences of up to five years in federal prison, prosecutors noted.

Also in 2019, three members of RAM were sentenced to between two and three years behind bars for assaulting anti-racism protesters at a white nationalist rally in Virginia and political gatherings in California.

Benjamin Daley, 30, of Torrance; Michael Miselis, 34, of Lawndale; and Thomas Gillen, 29, of Redondo Beach, each pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville, Virginia, to conspiracy to riot. The RAM members were caught on camera assaulting counter-protesters before a planned "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville in August 2017, prosecutors said.