A suspected member of a Southern California white supremacist group is expected to ask a judge Tuesday to grant him bail while awaiting trial on charges of planning and inciting brawls at political rallies last year.
Aaron Eason 38, of the Riverside County community of Anza, and three others were indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly inciting violence against counter-protesters, journalists and others. A lawyer for Eason is set to argue before a federal magistrate judge in downtown Los Angeles that his client is not a flight risk or a danger to the community and should be released on bail.
A friend of Eason's filed papers in Los Angeles federal court in support of the bail request, denying that Eason is a racist or a member of the so-called Rise Above Movement. The woman wrote that Eason attended at least one of the rallies by invitation in the role of peacekeeper.
One of the four defendants -- Tyler Laube, 22, of Redondo Beach -- pleaded guilty last week to conspiring to violate the federal riots act. In a plea agreement, Laube admitted to being associated with RAM, attending a "combat-training event" in San Clemente and assaulting counter-protesters and others at a "Make America Great Again" rally in Huntington Beach in March 2017.
Eason, Laube and co-defendants Robert Rundo, 28, of Huntington Beach, and Robert Boman, 25, of Torrance, were indicted on one count each of conspiracy to violate the federal riots act. Additionally, Rundo, Boman and Eason were charged with violating the riots statute. Each of the two counts carry sentences of up to five years in federal prison, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Last month, federal authorities arrested suspected RAM founder Benjamin Daley, 25, of Redondo Beach, and three others for their suspected roles in last year's deadly far-right rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Daley, Thomas Walter Gillen, 24, also of Redondo Beach, Michael Paul Miselis, 29, of Lawndale, and Cole Evan White, 24, of Clayton, California, are awaiting trial in Virginia.
