LOS ANGELES — An Aug. 1 sentencing hearing is set for a reputed onetime member of a Southern California white supremacist organization who was found guilty in downtown Los Angeles of inciting brawls at political rallies across the state.
Robert Boman, 31, of Torrance was convicted Tuesday in Los Angeles federal court of two counts: conspiracy to violate the Anti-Riot Act and rioting, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors told the jury that beginning around February 2017, Boman participated in a now-defunct racist group that presented itself on social media as a “combat-ready, militant group of a new nationalist identity movement.”
The defendant and his associates used the internet to post videos and pictures of themselves conducting training in hand-to-hand combat, interspersed with pictures and video clips of themselves assaulting people at political events, accompanied by messages in support of their white supremacist ideology, evidence showed.
The indictment states that Boman and his colleagues attended a number of peaceful protests, where they chased down and violently attacked counter- protesters. The rallies involved in the case were May 25, 2017, at Bolsa Chica Beach in Huntington Beach; April 15, 2017, in Berkeley; and June 10, 2017, in San Bernardino.
Two associates of Boman were also charged in the case.
Robert Rundo, 34, formerly of Huntington Beach pleaded guilty in September 2024 to one count of conspiracy to violate the federal Anti-Riot Act, and was sentenced to two years behind bars, which he had already served at the time of sentencing in December.
Rundo’s guilty plea came months after a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a federal criminal indictment against Rundo and Boman.
The indictment had been dismissed twice by then-U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney, who has since taken senior status. The former UCLA star receiver rejected criminal charges in the case after defense attorneys successfully argued that the Anti-Riot Act cited by federal prosecutors was “unconstitutionally over-broad.”
Carney concluded that the government selectively prosecuted Rundo and Boman while ignoring violence by members of antifa and related far-left extremist groups because the white supremacist organization engaged in what the government and many believe is more offensive speech.
In the 9th Circuit opinion, a judge wrote that the opposing left- and right-wing groups were not similar enough to meet the required standard.
The third defendant, Tyler Laube, 28, of Redondo Beach pleaded guilty in October 2023 to one count of interfering with a federally protected right and later was fined $2,000 and sentenced to time already served in custody.