By Lookout Staff

January 2, 2025 -- A Federal Appeals Court last month ruled that two men accused of setting a police car on fire during the violent 2020 protests in Santa Monica will go back on trial.

The Court on December 19 reinstated arson charges against Nathan Wilson and Christopher Beasley and remanded the case back to U.S. District Court "for further proceedings," according to Courthouse News Service (CNS).

The three-judge panel ruled the lower court had "overstepped its boundaries" when it dismissed the indictments against the two Southern California men, CNS reported.

In his lower court ruling, District Court Judge Fernando Olguin, an Obama appointee, agreed with the defense that the suspects were "unconstitutionally singled out based on the perception that they held anti-government beliefs."

The defense had argued that that Beasley and Wilson were signaled out for prosecution after then-President Trump and Attorney General William Barr blamed the violent protests on those with leftist viewpoints and threatened severe criminal penalties.

The prosecution argued that "being a left-wing extremist doesn't give one the right to burn a police car or, for that matter, to attack people physically at a protest. Nor does being a right-wing extremist."

Beasley, 36, of Los Angeles, a longtime member of the Westside Crips street gang, was quickly identified from a video of the May 31, 2020 incident posted on social media, according to the Justice Department's appeal.

Wilson, 32, of Van Nuys, who was wearing a bandana and hat during the arson incident, was more difficult to identify and was arrested more than four months after SMPD and the FBI issued a wanted poster in early June, 2020.

The search ended when Wilson became a suspect in a September 28 vehicle arson in Irvine following a domestic dispute with his live-in partner, according to the affidavit.

On October 9, Santa Monica Police officers, together with the Irvine Police Department and the FBI, executed a search warrant at the Irvine residence "and found Wilson hiding in a mattress box spring in the bedroom," according to prosecutors.

"During that search, authorities recovered items of clothing that appear to be the same seen on Wilson in the various photos taken near the destroyed police car," prosecutors said.