4 white supremacists arrested over 2017 Charlottesville rally
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Four members of a militant white supremacist group from California have been arrested on charges they traveled to Virginia last year to incite a riot and attack counterprotesters at a white nationalist rally that turned deadly, federal authorities said Tuesday.
The defendants — Benjamin Drake Daley, Thomas Walter Gillen, Michael Paul Miselis and Cole Evan White — are part of the Rise Above Movement, which espouses anti- Semitic views and meets regularly in public parks to train in boxing and other fighting techniques, according to an affidavit written by an FBI agent.
The affidavit alleges the four were “among the most violent individuals present in Charlottesville” in August of last year during a torch-lit march on the University of Virginia campus and a larger rally in down- U.S. Attorney Thomas Cullen announces the arrests in Charlottesville, Va. town the following day. It says photos and video footage shows they attacked counterprotesters, “which in some cases resulted in serious injuries.”
All four men were arrested Tuesday morning, U. S. Attorney Thomas Cullen said at a news conference in Charlottesville.
Cullen said each defendant faces a maximum of 10 years in prison if convicted on the two counts they each face: traveling to incite riots and conspiracy to riot. However, defendants often get less than the maximum under federal sentencing guidelines.
The arrests come more than a year after hundreds of white nationalists descended on Charlottesville in part to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
Clashes first erupted Aug. 11, 2017, as a crowd of white nationalists marching through the University of Virginia campus carrying torches and chanting racist slogans encountered a small group of counterprotesters.
The following day, more violence broke out between counterprotesters and attendees of the “Unite the Right” rally, which was believed to be the largest gathering of white nationalists in at least a decade.
About two hours after authorities forced the rally to disband, a woman was killed when a car prosecutors say was driven by a man fascinated by Adolf Hitler plowed into a crowd of peaceful counterprotesters. The death toll rose to three when a state police helicopter that had been monitoring the event crashed, killing two troopers.