Robert Rundo: Federal Case, Extradition, and Active Clubs

Robert Rundo is an American white supremacist organizer who co-founded the Rise Above Movement, a Southern California street-fighting group, and later built the transnational Active Club network. Born in Queens, New York, in 1990, he was sentenced on December 13, 2024, to 24 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to violate the federal Anti-Riot Act for organizing violence at political rallies in California in 2017. He was released the same day on credit for 725 days already served in American, Romanian, Serbian, and Salvadoran custody.¹

Background and Prior Conviction

Rundo grew up in Queens and spent time in youth boxing gyms, later describing his radicalization as a reaction to feeling out of place in those environments. In 2009, at 19, he was arrested for gang assault after a confrontation in a Queens store in which he chased a Latino man and stabbed him in the hand, elbow, arm, chest, and neck. He received a two-year state prison sentence and served roughly 20 months, getting out in 2011.²

Rise Above Movement and the 2017 Rally Attacks

In 2017, Rundo co-founded the Rise Above Movement (RAM) with Benjamin Daley in Southern California. The group began as “DIY Division” before rebranding that spring and grew to roughly 50 active members, concentrated in Orange County.³ RAM billed itself as the “premier MMA club of the Alt-Right,” combining white supremacist ideology with combat training meant to prepare members to fight political opponents in the streets.⁴

Federal prosecutors tied Rundo and other RAM members to violence at three California rallies in 2017:

A pro-Trump rally in Huntington Beach on March 25, where Rundo and others punched, kicked, and assaulted attendees, and co-defendant Tyler Laube was accused of attacking a journalist.⁵
A rally near UC Berkeley on April 15, where RAM members, some wearing skeleton masks and with their hands taped for fighting, attacked protesters and at least one police officer. Rundo was arrested on suspicion of battery of a police officer, but those charges were later dropped.²
A political gathering in San Bernardino on June 10, where RAM members again engaged in violence.⁶

Separate RAM members traveled to the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in August 2017 and were later charged for conduct there.⁴ Federal investigators said the group coordinated travel and combat training online, then posted videos of its attacks as recruiting material.⁵

The Federal Case: Two Dismissals, Two Reversals

On October 24, 2018, federal authorities charged Rundo, Robert Boman, Tyler Laube, and Aaron Eason in the Central District of California with conspiracy to violate the federal Anti-Riot Act and related rioting offenses. Each count carried a maximum of five years.⁶ The prosecution would take six years to resolve.

The First Dismissal and Ninth Circuit Reversal

In June 2019, U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney threw out the entire indictment, ruling that the Anti-Riot Act was unconstitutionally overbroad under the First Amendment. The defense had argued that language criminalizing anyone who would “organize, promote, encourage, or urge” a riot swept in protected speech.⁷ In March 2021, the Ninth Circuit reversed. The appellate panel agreed certain terms in the statute were unconstitutional but held they could be severed, leaving the rest of the Anti-Riot Act intact and the prosecution viable.⁸

The Selective Prosecution Dismissal

Back in the district court, Judge Carney dismissed the indictment a second time on February 21, 2024, in a 35-page order finding the government had engaged in unconstitutional selective prosecution. Carney concluded prosecutors had pursued RAM members for their white supremacist views while ignoring similar violence by antifa and other far-left participants at the same 2017 events, pointing to specific individuals at the Huntington Beach rally who used pepper spray and fought with others but were never charged federally.⁹ The judge wrote that “the government cannot prosecute R.A.M. members such as defendants while ignoring the violence of members of antifa and related far-left groups because R.A.M. engaged in what the government and many believe is more offensive speech.” He ordered Rundo released, saying he did not believe Rundo should spend “one minute more in custody.”¹⁰

The Ninth Circuit’s Second Reversal

The Ninth Circuit reversed Carney again in July 2024, rejecting the selective prosecution ruling. The panel said Rundo had not met the demanding legal standard, and that Carney had wrongly compared the diffuse conduct of groups like antifa to the defendants’ organized, repeated violence. The individuals Carney had identified were not similarly situated: they lacked leadership roles, did not engage in organized combat training, did not travel to multiple events to commit violence, and did not have prior violent criminal histories. The court also held that the government’s use of the defendants’ own documentation of their crimes was a legitimate, neutral factor rather than punishment for protected speech.¹¹

Plea and Sentence

With the indictment reinstated and trial approaching, Rundo pleaded guilty on September 13, 2024, to one count of conspiracy to violate the federal Anti-Riot Act. The case had been reassigned to U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton. Under the plea agreement, the government agreed not to seek more than two years, and Rundo admitted participating in RAM between March 2017 and May 2018, attending rallies with the intent to engage in violent conflicts, and personally assaulting people at Huntington Beach, Berkeley, and San Bernardino.⁷

Judge Staton imposed a 24-month prison sentence on December 13, 2024, followed by two years of supervised release.¹² Credit for 725 days he had already spent in custody across four countries covered the full term, and he walked free that day. The terms of his release bar him from associating with RAM members and subject him to extensive electronic monitoring of his devices and internet use.¹

Co-Defendants

Tyler Laube pleaded guilty in October 2023 to a misdemeanor count of interfering with a federally protected right, tied to repeatedly punching a journalist, and was sentenced to time served and a $2,000 fine.¹²¹³¹⁴

Flight to Europe, Extradition, and the Active Club Network

After Carney’s first dismissal in June 2019, Rundo left the United States. He settled in Belgrade, where Bellingcat identified him in 2020 posting videos of himself spraying white supremacist graffiti. In early 2020 he turned up at a march in Belgrade, a neo-Nazi “Honor Day” event in Budapest, and a march in Sofia, and he also spent time in Greece, Italy, and Ukraine building ties to European far-right groups.¹⁵¹⁶

Romanian authorities arrested him at a gym in Bucharest on March 29, 2023, on an American warrant. He was carrying identification under the alias “Robert Lazar Pavic.” After proceedings in the Bucharest Court of Appeals, FBI agents brought him from Romania to Hollywood Burbank Airport on August 1, 2023, and he was returned to federal custody.¹⁵⁶

During his years abroad, Rundo introduced what he called the Active Club concept in late December 2020, pitching it as “White Nationalism 3.0.” Where RAM had been a centralized street-fighting group whose high-profile violence drew federal charges and press, Active Clubs were designed as autonomous local cells focused on fitness, MMA training, and recruitment, with no formal top. The horizontal structure was meant to keep legal action against one cell from reaching the rest. Rundo supplies strategic direction through Telegram channels, his propaganda outlet Media2Rise, and a merchandise operation called Will2Rise, without formally leading any single club.¹⁷¹⁸

The network grew sharply after a joint event in San Diego on August 20, 2022, billed as the “Birth of a New Frontier,” which drew roughly 50 attendees from across the country. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that about two-thirds of the 53 Active Club Telegram channels it identified were created after that event, and by October 2023 Active Clubs had been identified in 37 U.S. states, with the heaviest concentrations in the Pacific Northwest, New England, and the Southeast.¹⁷ The Counter Extremism Project describes a presence in dozens of countries, including Canada and much of Europe, and the European Commission’s radicalisation prevention portal has flagged the security risks of that international footprint.¹⁹

Monitoring groups say the network is not merely about combat sports. The ADL describes it as promoting white supremacy, anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment, and the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, with members treating themselves as soldiers preparing for conflict.¹⁸ The Counter Extremism Project has called Active Clubs “militias hiding in plain sight” and “incubators” for radicalized, violence-ready members.²⁰

Where Things Stand Since His Release

Since walking out of court in December 2024, Rundo has continued to steer the Active Club network through online channels. The Counter Extremism Project says his messaging on Telegram and Substack provides “de facto leadership guidance” for the otherwise leaderless network, and he has designated 2026 as the “Year of Structure,” pushing a shift from public stunts toward movement-owned gyms, housing, and businesses meant to function as a self-sufficient “parallel economy.”²⁰ His supervised release conditions, including the ban on associating with RAM members and electronic monitoring of his online activity, remain in effect, and he continues to be a central figure for researchers tracking the network.²

1
The Guardian. Neo-Nazi Founder Robert Rundo Sentencing
2
Counter Extremism Project. Robert Rundo
3
Just Security. Amid Robert Rundos Extradition the White Supremacist Active Clubs Network Remains a Threat
4
ADL. Rise Above Movement
5
PBS Frontline. Members of Violent White Supremacist Group Face Riot Charges
6
U.S. Department of Justice. Lead Defendant in Federal Case Charging White Supremacist Group With Violence at Political Rallies
7
Los Angeles Times. Accused White Supremacist Leader to Plead Guilty
8
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. United States v. Rundo, 990 F.3d 709
9
New York Times. Rise Above Selective Prosecution
10
Los Angeles Times. Judge Again Dismisses Charges Against Members of California White Nationalist Group
11
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. United States v. Rundo (2024)
12
U.S. Department of Justice. Former Orange County Resident Linked to White Supremacy Group Sentenced to 2 Years in Prison
13
Los Angeles Times. White Supremacist Group Rioting
14
CBS News Los Angeles. Torrance Man Convicted in Rioting Case Tied to Former SoCal-Based White Supremacist Group
15
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Romania Rundo US White Supremacist
16
The Guardian. Robert Rundo White Supremacist Extradited Romania
17
Institute for Strategic Dialogue. Active Clubs
18
ADL. Active Club Network
19
European Commission. Return of a Leader: Robert Rundos Impact on the Violent Extreme Right Active Club Network
20
Counter Extremism Project. Active Clubs