White supremacist group members plead guilty over Charlottesville rally violence

‘These avowed white supremacists travelled to Charlottesville to incite and commit acts of violence,’ says Virginia prosecutor

Violence broke out at 'Unite the Rally' in August 2017 (Getty)

Two members of a white supremacist group arrested after the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville have pleaded guilty to a “conspiracy to riot” charge.

Benjamin Drake Daley and Michael Paul Miselis – leading figures in the now defunct group “Rise Above Movement” – filed the guilty pleas in US District Court in Virginia on Friday.

The federal charge relates to both the Charlottesville rally and rallies held in California, according to a statement issued by the US Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia. The pair will be sentenced in the summer.

“These avowed white supremacists travelled to Charlottesville to incite and commit acts of violence, not to engage in peaceful First Amendment expression,” US Attorney Thomas T. Cullen said.

“Although the First Amendment protects an organisation’s right to express abhorrent political views, it does not authorise senseless violence in furtherance of a political agenda.”

Daley, 26, faces between just over two years and three and a half years in prison, according to his plea document. The plea agreement for Miselis, 30, does not outline a specific prison stint, but the conspiracy to riot charge carries a maximum sentence of five years.

“As RAM members, Daley and Miselis trained to engage in violent confrontations and attended the Unite the Right rally with the expectation of provoking physical conflict with counter-protesters that would lead to riots,” said David W. Archey, FBI special agent in charge of the agency’s Richmond division.

Prosecutors said Daley, one of the founders of the Rise Above Movement, was chiefly responsible for organising the group’s presence at the Unite the Right rally on 12 August 2017.

Two other RAM members, Cole White and Thomas Gillen, each previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to riot after attending the rally in Charlottesville.

According to the US Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia, RAM “regularly held hand-to-hand and other combat training for members and associates to prepare to engage in violent confrontations with protestors and other individuals at purported political rallies”.

Prosecutors also said Daley, Miselis and other RAM members attended a University of Virginia campus march the night before the rally. Participants at the event carried torches and chanted “Jews will not replace us” and “blood and soil”.

Hether Meyer was killed at the Charlottesville rally after James Alex Fields Jr. drove his car into a group of counter-protesters. He was found guilty of murder last December.