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FORT WORTH — Federal judges in Texas on Tuesday gave eight members of an alleged "antifa cell" prison sentences as long as 100 years for their roles last summer in a protest outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility that included vandalism and the shooting of a police officer.
Benjamin Song, a former Marine reservist who was convicted this year of attempted murder for shooting the officer outside the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, faced life in prison and received 100 years. The other seven defendants were given prison terms between 30 and 70 years for charges such as rioting, providing support to terrorists, conspiracy to use and carry explosives, and conspiracy to corruptly conceal documents. Only Song was convicted of attempted murder.
The case has been praised as a victory by Trump administration officials as they crack down on left-wing protesters.
"These sentences justly punish the vicious, armed attack that these Antifa cell members planned and executed against law enforcement and detention center officers on the night of July 4th last year," Ryan Raybould, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said in a statement. "Their terrorist acts, attempted murder, vandalism, and explosives launched at a detention facility were a far cry from a peaceful protest or First Amendment expression."
The sentences come a week after the Justice Department filed charges against 15 people in Minneapolis who prosecutors allege belonged to antifa groups that conspired to obstruct and attack immigration agents earlier this year.
The investigations stem from the National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, which President Donald Trump issued after the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September. The memo defined antifa as a "domestic terrorist organization" and directed the Justice Department to "investigate and disrupt networks, entities and organizations that foment political violence."
The other defendants in the Prairieland trial, which ended in mid-March, are Savanna Batten; Zachary Evetts; Autumn Hill; Meagan Morris; Maricela Rueda and her husband, Daniel Sanchez Estrada; and another couple, Elizabeth and Ines Soto. Ines Soto is scheduled for sentencing July 1. Batten, Morris, Hill, Elizabeth Soto and Evetts faced sentences of up to 60 years and received 50 years each. Sanchez Estrada, who was not at the protest, faced a maximum sentence of 40 years and received 30 years. Rueda, his wife, faced a maximum of 60 years and received a 70-year term.
Paul Butler, a Georgetown University law professor and former federal prosecutor, called the sentences "stunningly severe." Such sentences, he said, are "extremely rare," especially for defendants "who aren't the trigger persons in violent crimes or haven't stolen millions of dollars."
Attorneys for the defendants - who include a middle school teacher, a college student, a mechanical engineer and a UPS worker - have said they are appealing the convictions.
The sentencings took place simultaneously in two courtrooms belonging to U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, a Trump appointee who oversaw the 12-day trial, and Chief U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor, who was appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush. (Butler said it was "unusual" for a judge who did not preside over the trial to sentence half the defendants.)
At sentencing, O'Connor said: "The defendants' violence and terrorism is an assault on democracy. The defendants' planning, staging and execution of the attack led to the attempted murder of an officer who ironically is not even involved in enforcing immigration law."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Shawn Smith argued at trial that the defendants, led by Song, plotted the attack as part of the protest outside the detention center, which also included anti-ICE vandalism. Smith noted that the defendants armed themselves, wore all-black clothing known as "black bloc" to conceal their identities and hid their phones in bags to prevent police from tracking them - all "antifa tactics," he said.
Defense attorneys countered that their clients' chat messages showed they had planned a peaceful demonstration, not a violent attack. Defendants who were armed had obtained their guns legally, they noted, arguing that the prosecution was politically motivated and the evidence slim. Pamphlets, zines and books seized from the accused were also legal, evidence of the group's shared political beliefs, not membership in an organized group, attorneys said.
Short for "anti-fascist," antifa is a loosely knit movement of far-left activists - often anti-capitalist or anti-state - who oppose fascism and other right-wing ideologies.
Prairieland prosecutors defined antifa in court filings as "a militant enterprise made up of networks of individuals and small groups, primarily ascribing to a revolutionary anarchist or autonomous Marxist ideology, which explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States government, law enforcement authorities and the system of law."
During the trial, prosecutors walked jurors through the events at the ICE facility in Alvarado that led to the charges: A group arrived late on July 4 and began spray-painting anti-police graffiti, slashing tires, destroying a surveillance camera and setting off fireworks at the building. Officers inside called local police.
Alvarado Police Lt. Thomas Gross arrived just before 11 p.m. Song yelled, "Get to the rifles!" then allegedly started shooting his AR-15-style rifle with a modified trigger that increased the rate of fire, investigators said.
Gross, who did not testify or appear at the sentencing, testified at trial that he felt ambushed. A bullet passed through his shoulder and out of his neck, narrowly missing his spine, he said.
Rueda's attorney, Sufia Khalid, noted that many of those who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol belonged to militias, were armed with multiple weapons, and attacked and injured police. But, she said, they were not charged, were charged with lesser crimes, received minimal sentences or were pardoned. Pittman dismissed her arguments. "The difference between this and Jan. 6 was that this was charged differently and there was a finding of terrorism," he said.
Some of the defendants, like Rueda and Soto, appeared somber. Morris, 42, wept, covering her face. "All I ever wanted to do with my life was help other people," she said as she sat handcuffed in an orange striped uniform. "I didn't want what happened that night to happen … I didn't want to hurt anybody."
Song smiled and used his opportunity to speak to raise alarm about what he called a nationwide crackdown on protest and free speech.
"I don't hate anyone. I don't hate cops. I don't hate Trump," he said. "I never want to see good people gunned down in the street. But we all saw what happened to Renée Good and Alex Pretti."
The judge interrupted him at the mention of the protesters fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis during an immigration operation in January.
"This is not the time and place for a political speech," Pittman said.
Later, Pittman said it was "by the grace of G od" that people, including Song, did not die. "This could have been an absolute slaughter," he said.
Pittman faulted Song's attorney for arguing at trial that Song had been defending himself from the officer. "If we are in an age where you use suppression fire at law enforcement, then we are at a really bad point in our history," he said.
Outside the courthouse, Song's mother read the entire statement her son had attempted to share with the court before Pittman admonished him. In the statement, Song said he opposed fascism, but insisted that he was not a member of an antifa group - and that antifa is not a group.
"He has accepted full responsibility," Hope Song said. "But he will never accept responsibility for a lie … which they are using to prosecute people all across the country for domestic terrorism."
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