October 2, 2018

Four White Supremacists Arrested for Their Role in Charlottesville Violence

The men were allegedly “among the most violent individuals present.”

Four white supremacists, “among the most violent individuals present” during the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” weekend, have been arrested on felony conspiracy charges, federal officials said Tuesday.

Benjamin Drake Daley, Thomas Walter Gillen, Michael Paul Miselis, and Cole Evan White, were identified as marchers in either the torch rally on campus or the deadly gathering at a Charlottesville park in August 2017.

The four men, all residents of California, are members of a militant white supremacist group called the Rise Above Movement. ProPublica has previously reported on RAM’s involvement in the Charlottesville violence.

The federal criminal complaint, filed August 27, was unsealed Tuesday. It includes images of the men engaging in violence, including attacking counter-protesters, using a torch as a weapon, and head-butting a clergyman.

Miselis was an aerospace engineer for defense contractor Northrop Grumman, but lost his job in July after ProPublica exposed his links to RAM. White also lost his job at a Berkeley, California, restaurant after being exposed as a white supremacist. Gillen and Daley were both jailed in the past for possessing an illegal firearm. In April 2017, during violent alt-right protests in Berkeley, Daley and another member of RAM even assaulted Mother Jones reporter Shane Bauer.

Read the charging documents in full here:

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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