LOS ANGELES
Officials stated Wednesday that the lead defendant in an indictment that charges three Southern California men linked to a white supremacy extremist group with planning and engaging in riots at political rallies across California was extradited from Romania.
Robert Paul Rundo, 33, of Huntington Beach, allegedly a founding member of the Rise Above Movement (RAM), was transported by special agents with the FBI from Romania to Hollywood Burbank Airport, where he arrived Tuesday.
Rundo is in federal custody and expected to appear and be arraigned Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.
Rundo, along with two other defendants, is charged with conspiracy to violate the Anti-Riot Act for his activities in connection with RAM, a white supremacist organization that represented itself “publicly…as a combat-ready, militant group of a new nationalist white supremacy and identity movement,” according to a federal grand jury indictment.
In addition to the conspiracy charge, Rundo also is charged with one count of rioting.
The other defendants charged in this case are:
- Robert Boman, 30, of Torrance
- Tyler Laube, 27, of Redondo Beach
Boman and Laube are charged with conspiracy to violate the Anti-Riot Act. Boman also is charged with one count of rioting.
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The trial date in this matter is scheduled for December 12.
According to the indictment, the defendants participated in the conspiracy in varying ways, including by engaging in the recruitment of RAM members, coordinating and participating in hand-to-hand and other combat training, traveling to political rallies to attack protesters and other persons, and publishing photographs and videos of violent acts to recruit other members for future events.
The indictment alleges that various conspiracy members directly participated in attacks at political rallies in Huntington Beach on March 25, 2017; Berkeley on April 15, 2017; and San Bernardino on June 10, 2017.
In the months following these events, the defendants allegedly trained for future events and celebrated their assaults, which included online posts with photos of RAM members assaulting people.
Defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
“Rundo was born and raised in Queens, New York. In 2009, Rundo and his friends confronted two Latino men in a store, chasing the victims before Rundo pounced on one man and stabbed him in the right hand, right elbow, left arm, chest, and neck. Rundo was sentenced to two years in a state prison on gang assault charges, serving around 20 months of the sentence,” according to Counter Extremism Project.
In June 2019, a federal district court dismissed the indictment against Rundo and the other defendants, finding that the federal Anti-Riot Act violated the First Amendment.
In March 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal, and the criminal charges were reinstated.
Both the conspiracy and rioting charges carry statutory maximum sentences of five years in federal prison.
The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating this case.
The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs and the FBI’s Legal Attaché Office in Bucharest provided substantial assistance in securing the arrest and extradition of Rundo.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Solomon Kim and Kathrynne N. Seiden, both of the Terrorism and Export Crimes Section, are prosecuting this case.