Three white supremacists were sentenced to prison for their involvement in the violence that broke out during the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
On Friday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia announced prison sentences to Benjamin Daley, 26, Thomas Gillen, 25, and Michael Miselis, 30, for kicking, chocking and punching counterprotestors. Footage and photos from the event showed the trio assaulting multiple people, including a woman who suffered a severe laceration as a result.
According to a criminal complaint filed in October, the men, who belonged to the now-defunct “Rise Above Movement,” were “among the most violent individuals” in attendance.
“These defendants, motivated by hateful ideology, incited and committed acts of violence in Charlottesville, as well at other purported political rallies in California,” U.S. Attorney Thomas Cullen said. “They were not interested in peaceful protest or lawful First Amendment expression; instead, they intended to provoke and engage in street battles with those that they perceived as their enemies.”
Daley was sentenced to serve 37 months in prison. Gillen will be jailed for 33 months, while Miselis will remain behind bars for 27 months. A fourth defendant, Cole Evan White, awaits sentencing at a later date. All four individuals previously pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to riot, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia said in a statement.
“The sentences imposed today demonstrate the U.S. Government’s intolerance of the use of violence, by anyone, to infringe upon the right of others to assemble peacefully,” the FBI’s Special Agent in Charge David Archey said.
The sentences come after self-proclaimed neo-Nazi James Fields, 22, who plowed his car into a crowd of counterprotestors and killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer, was slapped with a second life sentence plus 419 years in prison for the crime.
