Four alleged members of hate group charged in 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville
Four California men, all alleged members of an organized hate group, were arrested Tuesday and charged with violating a federal rioting law in connection with last year’s white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville that erupted in deadly mayhem.
Authorities described the suspects as members of a militant, racist and anti-Semitic group known as the Rise Above Movement, based in Southern California. The four were arrested by FBI agents and charged with one count each of violating a federal rioting statute and conspiring to violate it. Each offense is punishable by up to five years in prison.
Calling the men “serial rioters,” Thomas T. Cullen, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, said the Rise Above group “organizes, trains and deploys to various political rallies not only to espouse” hateful ideology “but also to engage in acts of violence against folks who are taking a contrary point of view.”
Cullen called the suspects “righteous targets for federal prosecution,” adding that “this wasn’t, in our view, the lawful exercise of First Amendment rights.” Referring to the Aug. 12, 2017, rally, he said the men “came to Charlottesville in order to commit violent acts.”
The four were identified as Benjamin D. Daley, 25, and Thomas W. Gillen, 34, both of Redondo Beach, Calif.; Michael P. Miselis, 29, of Lawndale, Calif.; and Cole E. White, 34, of Clayton, Calif. A criminal complaint alleges they carried out multiple assaults against counterprotesters during the Charlottesville demonstration.
It was unclear Tuesday whether they are being represented yet by lawyers.
The rally, dubbed “Unite the Right” by organizers, descended into a day-long scene of violent clashes involving hundreds of white supremacists and counterprotesters. The mayhem riveted the nation’s attention on the recently emboldened subculture of ethno-nationalists in the United States.
The demonstration was nominally focused on Charlottesville’s public statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, which the city wants to remove. A lawsuit filed by Confederate-heritage enthusiasts months before the rally has prevented the city from getting rid of the sculpture. A trial in the civil case is set for January.
Amid the violence that day, a self-professed neo-Nazi allegedly rammed his car into another vehicle on a crowded street, killing a counterprotester, Heather Heyer, 32, and injuring 35 other people.
James Alex Fields Jr., now 21, is awaiting trial in a Virginia court on numerous charges, including first-degree murder, and has been charged by federal authorities with multiple hate crimes, one of which carries a possible death sentence. Investigators said Fields had traveled to Charlottesville from his Ohio home.
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