(Ken Silva, Headline USA) White nationalist Robert Rundo was sentenced to time served Friday after reaching a plea deal to settle six-year-old allegations that he started several fights at political rallies in 2018, and plotted to do the same at the 2017 Charlottesville Untie the Right event—even though he wasn’t there.
Rundo’s sentencing came after a six-year legal saga that saw a U.S. judge toss his case—twice. But each time, an appeals court reinstated the charges, and he finally pled guilty once and for all in September.
Rundo, Robert Boman and Tyler Laube—all members of the white nationalist Rise Above Movement, or RAM—were first charged with planning and engaging in riots at political rallies in 2018. A federal district court dismissed the charges in 2019, finding that the federal Anti-Riot Act violated the First Amendment. However, the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court reversed the decision in 2021 and the charges were reinstated.
Rundo, the lead defendant, left the country and had to be extradited from Romania in August 2023. But in February, U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney again dismissed the case against him and Boman on the grounds that the DOJ was targeting right-wing activists while ignoring groups such as Antifa.
“The government uses the Anti-Riot Act, a once-rarely-used criminal statute, to prosecute members of the Rise Above Movement (“RAM”), a group of far-right, white supremacist nationalists, who attended several rallies and protests during which they engaged in violent acts,” Judge Carney said in his decision.
“At the same time, the government chose not to prosecute far-left extremist groups, such as Antifa, that went to the same protests and rallies and engaged in the same violent acts as alleged against the Defendants in this case, Robert Rundo and Robert Boman,” the judge added.
This time, Rundo stayed in the country. It may have been a good thing that he did. When Ninth Circuit appeals court overturned that decision later in the year, and Rundo was sent back to jail again.
The DOJ sought two more years of prison for Rundo in its Dec. 10 sentencing memorandum, but Judge Josephine L. Staton sided with the defense and gave him time served. Rundo was also sentenced to two years of supervised release.
Meanwhile, Rundo’s co-defendant, Boman, is still set to take his case to trial in February.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
