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Fifth Column | ||||
2 Antifa Adherents Guilty of Conspiracy to Riot in PB ‐ One Lawyer Vows Appeal | ||||
2024-05-04 | ||||
[TimesOfSanDiego] After nearly nine full days of deliberation, a San Diego jury Friday found two men with antifa affiliations guilty of conspiracy to riot at a Pacific Beach "Patriots March" in January 2021
Defendant Brian Lightfoot Jr. of Los Angeles was found not guilty on an assault charge and the jury couldn’t reach a verdict on five counts of using tear gas not in self-defense.
White, a 41-year-old, Hollywood set builder from Los Angeles,
Both remain free on their own recognizance. In a statement, District Attorney Summer Stephan said: "We want to thank the jury for their service and for reaching their just guilty verdicts on the two remaining defendants in the Antifa conspiracy case. "This was a complex case with 11 defendants indicted and now all convicted — nine by guilty pleas and two by jury verdict. The DA team worked tirelessly on this case in order to be sure our community remains safe, and that the rule of law is followed." After declaring a mistrial on nine counts, Judge Daniel Goldstein praised the jury, which heard testimony and saw evidence (including hours of video) for a month. "I’ve never seen a jury go over the facts like you did," he said a little after noon in downtown Superior Court. "You guys are the voice of the community." A bailiff led the jury panel out a back door, so none were available for comment. But the judge said he’d keep their names sealed. White and Lightfoot declined to comment immediately on their cases. But White lawyer Briggs, working for free, said his client "will definitely appeal after sentencing... and I think it’s an amazing appellate area that implicates the First Amendment. Briggs says case law would help an appeal on the conspiracy conviction of White, "where there was no evidence. There was no conversations or anything like that." He and Lightfoot lawyer John Hamasaki blasted the District Attorney’s Office for its prosecutions. "With the resources they put behind this," Briggs said, "they wasted a lot of taxpayers money and ultimately haven’t made the community any safer because they still have well-known white supremacists out in the community who had committed numerous vicious assaults that are without dispute that they haven’t prosecuted." Hamasaki, also based in the Bay Area: said he’s never seen a district attorney’s office expend this many resources on a single case — even more than multiple murders, gang murders. "I think you have to look at the political circumstances surrounding it," he said. noting Stephan’s focus on antifa as a candidate. "(You) wonder just exactly why this case was given so much resources and why so much energy was poured into it and at the end of the day, you know, where things ended up, I think is a repudiation of the use of those resources." Briggs previously sought to have the District Attorney’s Office disqualified from prosecuting the case because he alleged Stephan has historically declined to prosecute members of far-right organizations who commit violence. His motion was denied by Judge Goldstein. The District Attorney’s Office has said that "video evidence analysis shows that overwhelmingly the violence in this incident was perpetrated by the antifa affiliates and was not a mutual fray with both sides crossing out of lawful First Amendment expression into riot and violence." Briggs predicted White would get a moderate sentence — not a maximum 18 months. He didn’t think Lightfoot would be retried on the nine charges the jury couldn’t agree on. "It would be a waste of resources for them to retry this case," Briggs said. "So the bottom line is this is a loss for the DA because she didn’t get all she wanted." Hamasaki agreed. "It’s not a win," he said. "Nine hung counts is certainly not the way the DA had wanted this case to turn out. You know, I think it shows that things were not as cut and dried as the DA had wanted them to be and that there was a lot of evidence actually favoring Mr. Lightfoot in this case." Hamasaki, who isn’t sure yet of any appeal, called the guilty finding on conspiracy "problematic... because it punishes membership or affiliation with other individuals as opposed to the underlying guilty conduct."The Lightfoot lawyer said he hopes his client gets only probation, especially since he’s "really turned his life around... and become enrolled in this firefighters program that he’s been at for three or four months... I think that’s something the judge might consider." Hamasaki said the judge might allow him to continue to do that as an alternative, "where he could actually serve the community in a way that... would benefit everyone instead of just incarceration." Goldstein issued a set of warnings to both defendants about not dressing up in "Black Bloc" armored outfits or even associating with other antifa adherents. (Outside the courtroom, White’s antifascist girlfriend wondered aloud how that could be enforced since she lives with him in Boyle Heights.)
Related: Pacific Beach: 2024-04-19 Antifa are nervous and angry about how successful the prosecution has been against members of the So Cal Antifa Pacific Beach: 2024-02-15 'Counterprotester (Antifa) gets 2-year sentence in anti-fascist conspiracy prosecution Pacific Beach: 2021-12-08 10 Antifa members charged for alleged attacks on California pro-Trump protesters Related: Summer Stephan 02/15/2024 'Counterprotester (Antifa) gets 2-year sentence in anti-fascist conspiracy prosecution Summer Stephan 12/08/2021 10 Antifa members charged for alleged attacks on California pro-Trump protesters Summer Stephan 10/02/2021 California man gets life sentence for 2019 Poway synagogue shooting Related: So Cal Antifa: 2024-04-26 Video shows hundreds of migrants led by 'smugglers in black masks' who cut through border wall So Cal Antifa: 2024-04-24 Imprisoned trans So Cal Antifa member boasted about other attacks in newly uncovered social media accounts So Cal Antifa: 2024-04-21 Good Morning | ||||
Posted by:Frank G |