Three alleged members of a white supremacist group accused of inciting violence at California political rallies were cleared of federal charges after a judge found their actions amounted to constitutionally protected free speech.

Members of the Rise Above Movement were charged with conspiracy to commit rioting for using the internet to coordinate hand-to-hand combat training, traveling to protests and attacking demonstrators at gatherings in Huntington Beach, Berkeley and San Bernardino, prosecutors said. The group also posted videos to “celebrate their acts of violence” and recruit members.

Despite the group’s “hateful and toxic ideology,” the Anti-Riot Act of 1968, which was passed during civil rights and Vietnam War protests, was too broad in regulating free speech, Judge Cormac J. Carney ruled Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

“Make no mistake that it is reprehensible to throw punches in the name of teaching (anti-fascists) some lesson,” Carney wrote. “Nor does the court condone RAM’s hateful and toxic ideology. But the government has sufficient means at its disposal to prevent and punish such behavior without sacrificing the First Amendment.”

The judge threw out charges against alleged RAM leader Robert Rundo and members Robert Boman and Aaron Eason and ordered them to be released from custody.

Prosecutors were disappointed with the ruling and reviewing grounds for appeal, spokesman Ciaran McEvoy said.

A fourth member of RAM, Tyler Laube, pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge in November and admitted that as a member of the group he assaulted counter-protesters at a “Make America Great Again” rally in Huntington Beach in 2017.

The group used videos of the attacks to recruit members for future violence, Laube acknowledged in a plea agreement.

Laube, who was facing up to nearly three years in prison, filed Tuesday to withdraw his guilty plea and have the charges against him dismissed, his attorney Jerome Haig said.

Prosecutors described the group as militant white supremacists who espouse anti-Semitic and other racist views. They regularly train in fighting techniques.

Four other California members of RAM pleaded guilty in Virginia to federal rioting charges.

Those four admitted punching and kicking counter-protesters as white nationalists led a torch-lit march at the University of Virginia and the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in August 2017.

(AP)