SAN DIEGO (CN) — Multiple left-wing protesters received sentences of up to two years in jail on Friday in a novel case that pinned them as members of "antifa" that tried to stifle the speech of right-wingers in the San Diego neighborhood of Pacific Beach in 2021.
San Diego Superior Court Judge Daniel Goldstein said that the trial proved to him that antifa exists as an organization that appears to “have funding and they have an ability to make contact and morph into other things very quickly in many different jurisdictions.”
The defendants, he added, committed assault on supporters of former president Donald Trump and right-wing groups to stifle their First Amendment rights “for the benefit of antifa.”
Antifa — short for "anti-fascist" — is a catch-all term for a loose assortment of left-wing protesters with no central leadership or membership structure who share an opposition to authoritarianism and ethnic, sexual, gender and religious-based discrimination.
A CBS report cited by Congress says "antifa is not a highly organized movement" but rather "a loose affiliation of local activists scattered across the United States and a few other countries."
Goldstein sentenced both Jeremy White and Brian Lightfoot, the two defendants who took their cases to trial in April, to two years in jail.
Other defendants who previously pled guilty to various crimes received a range of sentences of up to a year in jail to probation also on Friday.
The case stemmed from an incident in the Pacific Beach neighborhood of San Diego shortly after the 2020 elections. Three days after pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, the former president’s supporters in California organized a “patriots march” rally in Pacific Beach.
Local leftist groups organized a counter-protest — but the competing right- and left-wing protests soon devolved into street brawls. That led to criminal charges against eleven left-wingers whom prosecutors soon branded as members of antifa.
Most of the defendants pled guilty to various crimes before White and Lightfoot took their cases to trial. Jurors found both not guilty on assault counts but guilty of conspiracy to riot. They also remained deadlocked on other charges, including additional counts of assault.
San Diego County prosecutors claimed that White and Lightfoot were self-described anti-fascists and antifa members who traveled to Pacific Beach from Los Angeles to stop Trump supporters from rallying — and to attack them. They said the pair was dressed in black protective gear and armed with mace, which they argued was a sign the pair was part of antifa or at least sympathetic to it.
Their conspiracy, the prosecutors argued, was largely conducted over widely available encrypted text messaging applications like Signal.
“Your use of Signal chat is far beyond my comprehension. I don’t understand what you guys are talking about,” Goldstein said, but the ability of people to form affinity groups and the ability to erase contacts so quickly is troublesome, he added.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors played a series of sometimes-shaky video clips shot by protesters, onlookers and undercover law enforcement.
The footage showed black-clad figures marching and confronting far-right groups. Both Lightfoot and White admitted the footage showed them discharging mace and attacking others but said they were acting in self-defense.
Both Lightfoot and White maintained that they went to the protest to protect people and their First Amendment rights. Any violence that they participated in was in self-defense against right-wingers' intent on harming people, including white supremacists and neo-Nazi groups, they maintained during their trial.
Antifa, White said “is just a mindset based on your opposition to fascism,” not a group that one can claim membership in.
“I have no doubt that you were personally the leader and instrumental in causing the chaos on the boardwalk that day,” Goldstein said about White, who he described as a “competent ringleader” who, with other defendants, lured young, lonely, people with mental health issues into left-wing political movements and anti-fascism with promises of fraternity.
White’s attorney, Curtis Briggs, said his client expressed remorse for the people who were hurt in Pacific Beach, but he won’t apologize for his activism, or fighting against white supremacy.
His ideology can seem off putting to someone in the mainstream, Briggs said “but I don’t want them picking on the nerdy kid on the other side, and that’s essentially what Mr. White is. He’s someone who found an identity and a social support network in a group of people who support his values, and unfortunately, things got out of hand.”
Before he was sentenced Lightfoot spoke to the court and expressed remorse.
“I don’t think nobody should be attacked for their political views. Nobody,” he said.
At the end of the nearly all day sentencing, the attorney for Christian Martinez, one of the first defendants to plea guilty said his client first connected with activists online during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
He thought he found people he could be a part of an accepting social movement with, Martinez said.
“I thought I was doing a good job, but I realized and reflected that my actions could have consequences, even though my mom had told me that before,” he said.
After he was sentenced and two sheriff’s deputies led him out of court to serve his 180 days in jail, Martinez looked back at the gallery at his family and shouted “bye mom.”
In a statement, White's friend Chad Loder criticized the San Diego District Attorney's office for not prosecuting members of the American Guard and other far-right extremists for what they said was a "brutal, unprovoked gang attack on a BLM protester and his female companion on January 9th, 2021" and jury and witness tampering during the trial.
Loder further claimed that some of the prosecutors witnesses are members of the American Guard.
Briggs previously filed a motion to disqualify San Diego District Attorney Summer Stephan from prosecuting the case because, he claimed, she ignored violence from members of the American Guard and other far-right extremists. Goldstein denied the motion.
“From the start this prosecution has been about holding individuals accountable for conspiring to bring violence to our community, something we won’t tolerate,” Stephan said in a statement after the defendants were sentenced. “This was a complex case with all 11 defendants convicted. Our prosecution team worked tirelessly with law enforcement on this case to ensure our community remains safe, and that the rule of law is followed.”
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