Founder of violent OC white supremacist group ordered freed after judge claims bias against far-right

Federal prosecutors who opted not to pursue charges against “Antifa” members cannot prosecute a Huntington Beach man accused of helping establish a Southern California-based militant, white supremacist group whose members attacked rivals at Southern California political rallies, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Criminal charges against Robert Paul Rundo for allegedly recruiting and training others to commit violence at rallies in Huntington Beach, San Bernardino and Berkeley were dismissed by U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney, who accused the U.S. Attorney’s Office of selective prosecution for pursuing suspected “far-right, white supremacist nationalists” but not “Antifa and other extremist, far-left groups.”

Previous efforts by the same judge to throw out the same charges for different reasons have been overruled by appellate judges. Judge Carney also came under scrutiny several years ago over a “racially insensitive” comment that led to his stepping down as chief judge of the federal Central District Court of California.

Prosecutors have identified Rundo, 33, as the founding member of the Rise Above Movement, which authorities have described as a “combat ready, militant group of a new nationalist white supremacy and identify movement” comprised of “serial rioters” with an “anti-Semitic, racist ideology.”

Rundo and other co-defendants are accused of attacking people at a March 2017 Huntington Beach rally held in support of then-President Donald Trump that turned into a violent melee at Bolsa Chica State Beach. He was also accused of violently confronting people at a San Bernardino anti-Islamic law rally in 2017 that included violence and acts of vandalism and at a rally in Berkeley.

Rundo touted the “violent acts” on social media in order to recruit prospective members to the Rise Above Movement, prosecutors alleged. Other people tied to the Rise Above Movement have previously been convicted in federal court, including four members who took part in the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia where counter-protestor Heather Heyer was killed and dozens of others were injured.

Carney wrote in his ruling that the government chose not to prosecute members of far-left extremist groups who “went to the same protests and rallies and engaged in the same violent acts as alleged against the defendant in this case.” The judge added that “by many accounts,” members of “Antifa and related far-left groups engaged in worse conduct and in fact instigated much of the violence that broke out at these otherwise constitutionally protected rallies to silence the protected speech of supporters of President Trump.”

The judge wrote that Rundo and other suspected Rise Above Movement members “openly promoted ideas the court finds reprehensible, and likely committed violence for which they deserve to be prosecuted.” But, the judge added, the case “is about something more important…

“It is about upholding the free speech and assembly rights guaranteed to all of us,” Carney wrote. “It does not matter who you are or what you say. It does not matter whether you are a supporter of All Lives Matter or a supporter of Black Lives Matter. It does not matter whether you are a Zionist professor or part of Students for Justice in Palestine. It does not matter whether you are a member of (Rise Above Movement) or Antifa. All are under the same Constitution and receive its protects.”

“It is those protections that will ensure our democracy endures,” the judge added. “We must never abandon them.”

Federal prosecutors denied in court filings that they wrongly targeted members of the Rise Above Movement. They noted that the members “routinely bragged about their violent conduct in public and online” and “trained together, traveled together and conducted vicious assaults as a group.”

“Defendants were not prosecuted for their political viewpoints or any protected First Amendment activity, but for their brazen and coordinated campaign to incite and engage in violence,” prosecutors wrote.

Counter-protestors potentially tied to left-wing groups were arrested at local rallies, prosecutors wrote, but there was no evidence that they took part in “coordinated group efforts to amplify their violent impact, let alone that they trained together to engage in combat fighting, used social media to recruit soldiers or traveled to multiple protests to assault people,” which is why they were not charged with federal crimes.

With the charges dismissed, Judge Carney ordered Rundo released from federal custody. That order comes months after Rundo was extradited back to the United States from Romania to face the federal charges.

The actual time of Rundo’s release would depend on the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Prosecutors are “examining the options available to us,” Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said. Prosecutors have already appealed Carney’s ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, he added.

The appellate court previously overruled a separate ruling by Judge Carney that would ended the criminal case against Rundo.

In 2019, Carney threw out the charges, ruling that the Anti-Riot act, which Rundo was charged under, was too broad in regulating free speech.

Appellate judges found that portions of the Anti-Riot Act did indeed intrude on protected speech, but still reinstated the criminal charges against Rundo. In doing so, the appellate judges ruled that the sections of the Anti-Riot act that focus on “unprotected speech” and “unprotected conduct” concerning acts of violence “in furtherance of a riot,” were constitutional.

In his latest ruling, Carney continued to question the Anti-Riot Act, at one point referencing it as a “once-rarely-used criminal statute.”

A veteran federal judge, Carney himself has drawn controversy in recent years.

In 2020, Carney stepped down from his post as the top-ranking federal judge for the Los Angeles and Orange County area because of a remark he made about a Black woman who was the court’s top administrator that some regarded as racially insensitive, according to the Associated Press.