'RNC 8' Charged, Group Promises To Unmask Plan

ST. PAUL (WCCO) ― Eight core members of a group that provided logistical support to anarchists wanting to disrupt the Republican National Convention were each charged Wednesday with a felony count of conspiracy to commit riot, following weekend police raids at some of their homes and work space.

According to a complaint in Ramsey County District Court, the eight are active members of the RNC Welcoming Committee, an anarchist and anti-authoritarian group that has a Web site advertising its plans to "Crash the Convention" by blocking traffic and immobilizing delegate buses.

Also Wednesday, federal authorities announced charges against another man accused of using Molotov cocktails to attack the main arena for the Republican National Convention.

According to the charges in Ramsey County, the eight RNC Welcoming Committee members are charged with conspiracy to commit riot in the second degree in furtherance of terrorism.

In a statement Wednesday night, the Welcoming Committee called its leaders "The RNC 8" and announced it would host a news conference in the morning to talk about their arrests.

"We in the RNC Welcoming Committee are not backing down from our organizing," the statement said. "(While investigators) have labeled us a 'criminal enterprise', painting a picture of us and other anti-RNC organizers as faceless terrorists... on Thursday we will show the true faces and stories of the RNC Welcoming Committee."

"These charges are an effort to equate publicly stated plans to blockade traffic and disrupt the RNC as being the same as acts of terrorism. This both trivializes real violence and attempts to place the stated political views of the Defendants on trial," Bruce Nestor, President of the Minnesota Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, also said in a statement.

Those charged are: Luce Guillen-Givens, 23; Nathanael David Secor, 26; Erik Charles Oseland, 21; Monica Rachel Bicking, 23; Robert Joseph Czernik, 32; Garrett Scott Fitzgerald, 25; Max Jacob Specktor, 19; and Eryn Chase Trimmer, 23. The complaint claimed members had participated in many RNC Welcoming Committee meetings and training sessions where people discussed ways to disable police cars, use disguises to hide in a crowd, or assault officers.

Click here for a slideshow of the suspects' mug shots.

Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner said all but one of those people was in custody by Wednesday afternoon, and her office was seeking $75,000 in bail for each.

According to the complaint, authorities had been investigating members of the RNC Welcoming Committee for the last year, with the help of an undercover investigator and three informants.

Authorities conducted raids on three homes in Minneapolis and on a St. Paul work space of the group, and allegedly found bolt cutters, sling shots, six throwing-style knives, smoke bombs, machetes and other devices.

Meanwhile, Matthew Bradley DePalma, 23, of Flint, Mich., was charged Saturday with one count of possessing unregistered firearms after a two-month investigation, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Wednesday. He was arrested the same day at a house in Minneapolis.

Authorities said DePalma attended an event in Waldo, Wis., in July called the CrimeThinc Convergence, and told an FBI source he wanted to travel to Minnesota to attack the convention.

An FBI affidavit said DePalma talked about making Molotov cocktails, got the supplies in August, and assembled five by the time of his arrest. DePalma talked of attacking Xcel Energy Center, the affidavit said.

DePalma's federal public defender, Reggie Aligada, was out of the office Wednesday afternoon and was not expected to return. A phone listing for DePalma in Flint had been disconnected.

A preliminary hearing was scheduled for 1 p.m. Friday.