Left: Robert Paul Rundo, of Huntington Beach, California, holds down and punches a counterprotester at a political rally at Bolsa Chica State Beach in Huntington Beach, Calif. March 25, 2017. (Mindy Schauer/The Orange County Register via AP)
A former leader of a white supremacist group convicted of rioting at political rallies in California and claimed he was fighting Antifa will be getting out of custody for time already served as he was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison.
Robert Paul Rundo, 34, was sentenced on Friday in Los Angeles by U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton, a Barack Obama appointee, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced in a press release. Rundo pleaded guilty in September to one count of conspiracy to violate the federal Anti-Riot Act.
Rundo, who was set to be released from custody on Friday, told the judge he’s a changed man, The Guardian reported.
“I found community within the alt-right scene, and foolishly, I thought I could play vigilante,” Rundo said, the newspaper reported. “The views I held at 26 have changed. I’m 34 now and will stay the course of nonviolence.”
“This process has taken nearly a decade out of my life,” Rundo added. “It’s a strong reminder to think before I speak and think before I act.”
He remained in custody as of Friday night, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website.
Rundo and three other members of the now-defunct white supremacist group, the Rise Above Movement, or RAM, were indicted in 2018 for rioting at rallies up and down California a year earlier. Prosecutors said the group held hand-to-hand combat training sessions and posted photos on social media with the hashtag #rightwingdeathsquad.
At one rally in Huntington Beach, Rundo tackled and punched a protester. At another rally in Berkeley, Rundo and others punched and kicked several people. At a third, back in the Southern California city of San Bernardino, the group confronted and chased protesters.
Law&Crime reported on the twists and turns in the legal drama that played out in the case.
In June 2019, a federal district court dismissed the indictment against the defendants and released Rundo, finding that the federal Anti-Riot Act violated the First Amendment.
In his decision, now-retired U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney, a George W. Bush appointee, argued that while Rundo’s personal views were reprehensible, the prosecution under a series of anti-rioting charges struck him as wildly unfair.
“An objective review of the evidence reveals that though Mr. Rundo espouses a hateful ideology, he and his codefendants were not the true threat to democracy at rallies. Contrary to the government’s accusations, it was Antifa, a far-left extremist group, that posed the insidious threat to democracy,” the judge wrote.
Then, in March 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal, and the criminal charges were reinstated.
Authorities caught up with Rundo, in Bucharest, Romania, where he’d been spotted working out at a gym. He was extradited from Romania to the U.S. in 2023.
But the legal battle continued. Earlier this year, Carney again dismissed the charges, saying, “By many accounts, members of Antifa and related far-left groups engage 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 the supporters of President Trump. That is constitutionally impermissible.”
“The government cannot prosecute RAM members such as defendants while ignoring the violence of members of Antifa and related far-left groups because RAM engaged in what the government and many believe is more offensive speech,” he added.
But in July, 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Milan D. Smith Jr., a George W. Bush nominee, overturned Carney’s ruling, noting the “erroneous standard when reviewing a selective prosecution claim.”
The defendants, Smith wrote, “behaved like leaders of an organized crime group.”
“They coordinated combat training sessions; created materials to recruit others; and planned cross-country travel to commit their acts,” Smith wrote. “Nothing in the record indicates that [far-left group members] were similarly organized. That is, there is no evidence that these individuals trained together, coordinated their attendance at other rallies, recruited others, or otherwise did anything other than commit violence at the Huntington Beach rally.”
