After extradition from Romania, Southern California man pleads guilty to violent white supremacist rallies

After being extradited from Romania, a man from Huntington Beach pleaded guilty to organizing and taking part in a series of violent rallies with white supremacists in California in the months before the deadly "Unite the Right" protest in Charlotteville.

Robert Rundo, 34, admitted in a plea agreement that he took part in three rallies in 2017 as part of the Rise Above Movement, or RAM, a now-defunct group federal prosecutors describe as a violent organization devoted to white supremacy and white nationalism. Rundo and other members would train together before rallies and then pursue and assault other people at the political rallies, according to federal prosecutors. He was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport in late October 2018, and the FBI has described him in the past as co-founder and leader of RAM.

On Friday, he pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to violate the federal Anti-Riot Act. 

"Mr. Rundo's cowardly and unprovoked acts of violence were unjustly carried out upon his victims, leaving those who were victimized, their families, and our community torn by hate," Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office, said in a statement.

He is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 13, prosecutors said.

An investigative report from ProPublica detailed how years ago, in 2009, Rundo stabbed a Latino man just outside a store in New York City and struck a plea deal leading to two years in prison, of which he served 20 months. 

The report was published in October 2017 after the string of California rallies earlier that year.

A year later, in November 2018, a grand jury indicted him and three other defendants from Southern California following his arrest. 

In March 2021, the Balkan Insight reported Bosnian police were searching for Rundo as a wanted U.S. fugitive who had entered Bosnia after being expelled from Serbia. After spending nearly a year on the run, he was extradited from Romania last year. 

Court records show he has already spent almost two years in prison so prosecutors previously agreed to recommend no more than two years. His guilty plea Friday follows some legal wrangling, with him being jailed and released, since the case started in 2018.

Earlier this year, an Orange County federal judge dismissed charges against him for a second time, arguing that he and his co-defendants were facing selective prosecution other groups have not faced.

"At the same time, the government chose not to prosecute far-left extremist groups, such as Antifa, that went to the same protests and rallies and engaged in the same violent acts as alleged against the Defendants in this case Robert Rundo and Robert Boman," U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney Carney wrote. 

"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," Carney wrote. 

However, in July, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that ruling.

At the time of Rundo's arrest, the FBI described him as co-founder and leader of RAM, which the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as a designated hate group and describes as an "overtly racist" street fighting club.

"The "Rise Above Movement" is a Southern California-based racist fight club that first rose to prominence on the racist "alt-right" rally scene in 2017 and is often photographed in bloody confrontations with protesters," reads an online description from the Southern Poverty Law Center, a legal advocacy nonprofit and leader in tracking U.S.-based hate groups.

Rundo and others in the group would post messages on social media with phrases like #rightwingdeathsquad as they prepared to fight at rallies. He has pleaded guilty to his role in three rallies across California in 2017.

In March of that year, at a rally in Huntington Beach, Rundo tackled and punched a protester several times. Afterwards, he and others in RAM posted photos and videos online celebrating their assaults, federal prosecutors said. The next month, he punched and kicked several people at a rally in Berkeley, and again, posted about it online. 

ProPublica reported that Rundo was arrested on suspicion of assaulting an officer at the Berkeley rally but prosecutors declined to file charges.

The indictment filed in January 2023 states that Rundo allegedly "committed, participated in, and aided and abetted one or more acts of violence against individuals at the Berkeley Rally, including against a Berkeley Police Department police officer."

Later in 2017, in June, he took part in another rally in San Bernardino where prosecutors say he confronted and pursued protesters.

Two months later, in August, a number of white nationalist and supremacist groups — including members of RAM — came together at the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virg., where a counter-protester named Heather Heyer was run over and killed. A self-avowed white supremacist later pleaded guilty to federal hate crime charges in her death after being convicted of her murder.

Months later, in the spring of 2018, Rundo and some men charged in connection with the Charlottesville rally traveled to Europe to celebrate Adolf Hitler's birthday and meet with members of other white supremacy extremist groups, according to a prior criminal complaint filed in the case.

The investigative report by ProPublica, called "Racist, Violent, Unpunished: A White Hate Group's Campaign," detailed alleged and convicted crimes by members of RAM including Rundo. The report describes the 2009 incident in Queens, New York, in which Rundo confronted two Latino men in a store, and along with other men with him, and chased the victims into a street outside.

He was charged with stabbing one of the men when they tripped and fell, stabbing him in the chest, neck and other parts of his body, ProPublica reported, citing court records and a sworn statement from an NYPD detective who said it was all captured on surveillance video. 

He was sentenced to two years in state prison on gang assault charges through a plea deal, ProPublica reported.

In the federal case in which he has pleaded guilty, there are two other defendants charged — Robert Boman, 31, of Torrance and Tyler Laube, 28, of Redondo Beach. Bowman has been charged with one federal count of conspiracy to violate the Anti-Riot Act and one count of rioting.

In October 2023, Laube pleaded guilty to one count of interfering with a federally protected right. He was fined $2,000 and sentenced to time already served in custody.