Four men connected to a white supremacist group based in California have been arrested and charged with rioting at last year’s Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va.
The United States Attorney Office announced today that Benjamin Drake Daley, 25, Thomas Walter Gillen, 34, Michael Paul Miselis, 29, and Cole Evan White, 24, all of California, were all arrested there early this morning by federal agents. Each has been charged with one count of violating the federal riots statute and one count of conspiracy to violate the federal riots statute. Prosecutors say the men flew in from the West Coast “with the intent to encourage, promote, incite, participate in, and commit violent acts in furtherance of a riot.”
“These four committed particularly violent acts in Charlottesville,” U.S. Attorney Thomas Cullen said in a news conference Tuesday. “They committed violent acts in California, at other rallies. Therefore, in our view they were essentially serial rioters.”
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