Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judges moved on Thursday to block the release of Robert Rundo — the purported founder of a Southern California-based militant white supremacist group — a day after a lower court judge dismissed the criminal case Rundo was facing while accusing prosecutors of failing to pursue similar charges against “Antifa” members.
U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney ordered Rundo’s release on Wednesday, after ruling that federal prosecutors engaged in “selective prosecution” by pursuing suspected “far-right, white supremacist nationalists” but not “Antifa and other extremist, far-left groups.”
It wasn’t immediately clear if the appellate judges — who have blocked previous attempts by Judge Carney to dismiss the case — moved fast enough to actually stop Rundo from being released from lockup. The Federal Bureau of Prisons websites lists Rundo as being released on Wednesday. But prosecutors did not immediately respond to questions about Rundo’s current custody status.
Rundo, a 33-year-old Huntington Beach resident, is described by prosecutors as the founding member of the Rise Above Movement, a “combat ready, militant group” of white supremacists and “serial rioters.” Rundo was charged with recruiting and training others to take part in violence alongside him at political rallies in Huntington Beach, San Bernardino and Berkeley.
Hours after Judge Carney dismissed the charges against Rundo and ordered him released, federal prosecutors filed an emergency motion with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Prosecutors argued that with no bond conditions or travel constraints, Rundo once freed would be an “extreme flight risk” who would likely flee the United States for a non-extradition country before Judge Carney’s ruling could be appealed.
Rundo has “many foreign contacts” and “has traveled extensively to foreign countries to evade arrest,” prosecutors alleged in their written motion to the appellate…
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