Published June 28, 2024

A San Diego judge said that on Jan. 9, 2021, in Pacific Beach, antifa members “sought to crush, through the use of violence, the First Amendment rights of citizens others” during a pro-Trump rally

A San Diego judge sentenced eight defendants to prison and jail terms Friday for their roles in a series of politically motivated attacks during a January 2021 rally in Pacific Beach, calling the defendants “hypocritical” for professing to be anti-fascist while violently assaulting political opponents practicing free speech.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Daniel Goldstein said that after presiding for years over the first-of-its-kind case alleging an antifa conspiracy, he was left with no doubt as to the existence of antifa as an organization.

“I don’t believe it’s as structured as a criminal cartel,” Goldstein said. “I think it pops up fairly fast … But it does appear they have funding, and they have an ability to make contact and morph into other things very quickly, in many different jurisdictions.”

The judge did not say what kind of funding he believes the group has. Extremism experts consider antifa to be a leaderless group of like-minded, left-wing activists. A 2020 Congressional Research Service report described the U.S. antifa movement as “decentralized, consisting of independent, radical, like-minded groups and individuals” who often “echo the principles of anarchism, socialism, and communism” and among other things “may also support environmentalism, the rights of indigenous populations, and gay rights.”

But Goldstein said that on Jan. 9, 2021, in Pacific Beach, antifa members “sought to crush, through the use of violence, the First Amendment rights of others.”

On that day, supporters of then-outgoing President Donald Trump held a “Patriot March” in the coastal neighborhood, some of them falsely claiming that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen. Other rallygoers that day were members of the “Proud Boys,” an organization the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated a hate group and the Anti-Defamation League has designated a right-wing extremist group. At least five people present in Pacific Beach had been at the storming of the U.S. Capitol three days earlier.

Goldstein said none of that mattered.

“I don’t doubt for any minute that the Trump supporters were offensive to the defendants and actually others in Pacific Beach that day,” the judge said. “But that’s the nature of political speech. That does not mean that individuals with offensive speech cannot assemble, congregate and protest.”

Though reporters and bystanders also documented violence committed by the pro-Trump rallygoers — one video showed a group attacking a barefoot man in a George Floyd T-shirt, including one man who spit on him and sucker punched him — the District Attorney’s Office has maintained that most of the violence was carried out by the left-wing counterprotesters.

The judge said it’s natural for individuals to have ideological differences, but “you can’t resort to physical violence when you believe the other team is wrong.”

Despite the judge’s harsh criticism of the defendants’ actions, he handed out relatively light punishments Friday. The longest custody sentences were given to Jeremy Jonathan White and Brian Cortez Lightfoot Jr., the two defendants who took their cases to trial in April. The judge sentenced both White, 41, and Lightfoot, 27, to two-year prison terms that they’ll be able to serve in county jail.

Later in the hearing, after sentencing a different defendant, the judge said he would have given White a longer sentence, if possible. Goldstein said that White, who was convicted by the jury on one count of conspiracy to riot, was a “ringleader” of the group unlike many of the other defendants who joined because they were followers who were looking to fit in. White’s attorney told reporters in May after the verdict was read that White intends to appeal his conviction.

“If Mr. White was the brains, Mr. Lightfoot was the fist,” Deputy District Attorney William Hopkins told the judge Friday. Lightfoot faced up to five years and four months in prison after the jury convicted him on one count of conspiracy to riot and five counts of use of tear gas not in self-defense. The jury was hung on nine counts of assault.

Goldstein said the probation department recommended a maximum prison term for Lightfoot. “But … unlike Mr. White, you’re expressing remorse,” the judge told him in handing down the two-year sentence. Lightfoot’s attorney said his client has been training to become a wildland firefighter. Goldstein said he would recommend that Lightfoot be able to serve part of his term in one of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s conservation camps, where inmates learn firefighting skills and help battle wildfires, though the judge acknowledged his sentence was likely not long enough to qualify for such a camp.

The six other defendants who were sentenced Friday had pleaded guilty to various charges, some of them nearly two years ago. The judge sentenced each of them to what is technically probation, though as a term of their probation they each must serve custody terms in county jail.

He sentenced Alexander Akridgejacobs, 33, to 270 days in custody; Joseph Austin Gaskins, 23, to one year; Ruchelle Ogden, 26, who was previously known as Samuel Howard Ogden, to one year; Bryan Rivera, 22, to 180 days; Faraz Martin Talab, 29, to one year; and Christian Martinez, 25, to 180 days.

Goldstein previously sentenced Jesse Merel Cannon to five years in prison and Nikki Yach, previously known as Erich Louis Yach, to four years and eight months in prison. Goldstein said Friday that Cannon and Yach, like White, were leaders of the group. The final defendant, Luis Francisco Mora, pleaded guilty shortly before he was set to go to trial with White and Lightfoot. He agreed to a sentence of two years and eight months in his plea agreement.

Correction: This story previously misstated the sentences six of the defendants received. They were sentenced to probation with mandatory terms of jail custody, not suspended prison terms.