Five Patriot Front members convicted of conspiracy to riot in Coeur d’Alene

A jury deliberated for a little over an hour before convicting five Patriot Front members Thursday for conspiring to disrupt a Pride celebration last June in downtown Coeur d’Alene.

Devin Center, James J. Johnson, Forrest Rankin, Robert Whitted and Derek Smith stood in suits behind their attorneys and showed no emotion after a clerk read the guilty verdict to the charge of conspiracy to riot by disturbing the peace, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail.

The five men will be sentenced at 9:30 a.m. Friday by Judge James Stow.

It’s been more than a year since law enforcement agencies swarmed a busy arterial leading to downtown Coeur d’Alene and arrested 31 of the white nationalist group members.

The men, who wore blue shirts, khaki pants and white face masks, were packed into a U-Haul moving truck and bound for City Park to protest Pride in the Park before police intercepted them on Northwest Boulevard, just north of the park.

Read more: The Spokesman-Review