Antifa defendant Jesse Merel Cannon of San Diego will serve five years in state prison for conspiring to riot against a pro-Trump rally in Pacific Beach and assault with a dangerous weapon in two separate cases.
His weapons?
A folding chair (on Jan. 9, 2021) and a “very large log” (on Dec. 4, 2023), Deputy District Attorney Makenzie Harvey said Tuesday after a sentencing hearing in downtown Superior Court.
Cannon, 33, who called himself a political prisoner in a Jan. 4 note to Times of San Diego, sat quietly throughout the hearing before Judge Daniel Goldstein.
His only words: “Ah, yes” — while responding to a discussion about restitution to unidentified victims in his Pacific Beach riot case.
Three fellow defendants will face trial soon, however.
Jury selection begins March 25 for Los Angeles residents Luis Francisco Mora, 32; Jeremy Jonathan White, 41; and Brian Cortez Lightfoot Jr., 27, with a single trial set to start April 2 “downstairs” in a larger courtroom than Tuesday’s 1901.
Mora, White and Lightfoot are also accused of conspiring to riot in 2021 and various felony assault charges. But their attorneys don’t expect Cannon to testify against them.
Jesse Cannon and Lauren Angelos. Photo by Ken Stone 
Jesse Cannon and Lauren Angelos. Photo by Ken Stone 
Makenzie Harvey, prosecution co-counsel. Photo by Ken Stone 
Cannon lawyer Lauren Angelos. Photo by Ken Stone 
Judge Daniel Goldstein views laptop. Photo by Ken Stone 
Jesse Cannon and Lauren Angelos. Photo by Ken Stone 
Judge Daniel Goldstein consults. Photo by Ken Stone
John Hamasaki of San Francisco, Lightfoot’s attorney, says the DA’s Office has no “cooperation agreement” with his client or seven other defendants who have pleaded guilty.
But Curtis Briggs, the San Francisco lawyer for White, told Goldstein that he would be filing a “plethora of motions” — including one asking the judge to dismiss the case for “selective prosecution.”
Briggs, younger brother of San Diego attorney Cory Briggs, made a similar case in his failed November effort to disqualify District Attorney Summer Stephan and her entire office.
At that hearing, Goldstein didn’t accept Briggs’ claims that Stephan and her office should be recused because they didn’t bring similar felony charges against violent right-wing demonstrators at the Pacific Beach “Patriot March.”
The San Diego County District Attorney’s Office has said in prior public statements that “video evidence analysis shows that overwhelmingly the violence in this incident was perpetrated by the Antifa affiliates and was not a mutual fray with both sides crossing out of lawful First Amendment expression into riot and violence.”
Briggs says he’s filed only one other motion for selective prosecution — a celebrated case in 2015 involving Chinatown gangster Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow.
His motion failed in federal court, “but did lead to several uncharged people being charged,” he said via email.
Three men — Zulu Jones, Kieth Jackson and Nazly Mohajar — were charged after Briggs filed the motion, he said.
Briggs — who like Hamasaki attended remotely via MS Teams — also appears poised to challenge an expert witness on antifa that prosecutors want to use.
The new expert, who wasn’t named Tuesday, is from Washington state and would replace Dawn Perlmutter, who testified at Grand Jury proceedings in the Pacific Beach case.
FBI consultant Perlmutter is director of the Symbol Intelligence Group, which “works with law enforcement analysts and agencies to identify and interpret tattoos, symbols, symbolic dates and ritual activity to determine the ideology or religion that they are related to,” according to court records.
Judge Goldstein instructed prosecutors to share information on the new antifa expert.
“I don’t want to walk into a land mine during the trial,” he said, adding later: “I’m going to need at least a week for [pretrial] motions.”
Bearded defendant Cannon, wearing a dark-blue jail outfit, sat next to his attorney, Lauren Angelos, and stared straight ahead for his 20-minute appearance.
He accepted a “stipulated” agreement that included concurrent two-year prison terms for his San Diego actions three days after the Jan. 6 Capitol siege. A three-year term was added for his Dec. 4 actions.
San Diego-based attorney Angelos wouldn’t comment on Cannon’s case but indicated he wouldn’t have to pay restitution until receipts were provided to prove victims lost items.
A restitution hearing is set March 13.
Sentencing for six of the original 11 defendants was delayed from April 19 to June 12.
— City News Service contributed to this report.
Updated at 9:55 p.m. Feb. 13, 2024