Four Californians charged with inciting violence at Charlottesville rally in 2017

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Four Californian men described by prosecutors as members of a group of white supremacist activists were arrested Tuesday for inciting violence at a white nationalist rally that shot in Charlottesville in April. Virginia last year.

The unsealed criminal complaint before the Charlottesville US District Court charged all four – Benjamin Drake Daley, 25, Michael Paul Miselis, 29, Thomas Walter Gillen, 34, and Cole Evan White, 24 – violation of the federal riot and riot conspiracy statute.

Each accused faces 10 years in prison if he is found guilty of both counts, the authorities said. No plea has been entered.

Authorities said the four men flew off the west coast in August 2017 to participate in the "Unite the Right" rally to protest the removal of a statue in Robert E's honor. Lee, commander of the Confederate army in the American Civil War.

They are accused of physically assaulting opponents at the Aug. 12 rally at Charlottesville's Emancipation Park and a torchlight walk the night before on the University of Virginia campus, where hundreds of Unite the Right protesters chanted the life account "and" the Jews will not replace us ".

On August 12, the event came to an end when a man dropped his car into a crowd, killing a 32-year-old counter-protester, Heather Heyer, and wounding dozens of people. other. The driver, James Alex Fields Jr., was charged with the murder in June. He pleaded not guilty.

US President Donald Trump has been condemned by Democratic and Republican political leaders for stating that "the violence was attributable to" many parties ".

The four men newly indicted for inciting violence were identified in an FBI affidavit as members and associates of the California-based Rise Above movement, described as a "militant organization of white supremacy".

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Prosecutors said their participation in the beatings of counter-protesters was corroborated by photographs and video footage of the events, some of which are taken from a collection of still images printed in the affidavit. .

The defendants were also charged with "participating in acts of violence" at previous political rallies in Huntington Beach and Berkeley, California.

Daley, Miselis and Gillen, all from southern California, were charged in a court appearance Tuesday before a federal magistrate in Los Angeles. US service Marshals ordered everyone to remain in custody pending further prosecution.

White, a resident of the San Francisco area, was scheduled to attend his first hearing in Oakland on Wednesday.

All four will eventually be transferred to Virginia in a federal prison or, if they are released on bail, must appear for future hearings.

The US investigating judge, Jean Rosenbluth, refused bail for Miselis, who, according to prosecutors, had traveled with Daley to Germany, Italy and Ukraine to meet with white nationalists at l & # 39; abroad.

Federal Attorney David Ryan said that thousands of rounds of ammunition, smoke bombs and flares had been found at Miselis' home at the time of his arrest. The judge cited a photo showing him hitting someone who had fallen to the ground.

Miselis' lawyer, Angel Navarro, described his client in court as an educated, law-abiding citizen who had graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles. Navarro later told reporters that the defendants were all entitled to a presumption of innocence.

Other people's lawyers either refused to discuss the case with the journalists or were not available as a result of the proceedings.

Thomas Cullen, an American lawyer in the Virginia district of western Canada, said he expects the four men to be tried by the end of the year.

"This case should serve as a further example of the Justice Department's commitment to protecting the life, liberty and civil rights of all our citizens," Cullen said at a conference of press.

He said the prosecutors had chosen to prosecute the four men as a violation of US riot laws rather than hate-motivated crimes, but he did not rule out the possibility of carrying others. accusations. At least two defense lawyers said they expect that a federal indictment will soon be rendered in the case.