Child sex offender served leadership role at Portland Antifa autonomous zone

Micah Isaiah Rhodes, 27, was convicted of three counts of second-degree sexual abuse of minors in 2018. He was sentenced to two and a half years in prison after violating probation by being near children during an Antifa occupation of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.

Since being released from prison in July, Rhodes has returned to the far-left activism he was known for. After the establishment of the “Red House Autonomous Zone” in Portland last week, where Antifa extremists barricaded a house and the surrounding streets, he took on a leadership position. But some in the far-left activist community are quietly voicing their concerns anonymously online.

“I’m incredibly uncomfortable with Micah having a leadership role at [RHAZ],” tweeted user @riotslutt. “I’ll [obviously] default to Black leadership on this, but I’m not gonna hold back on vocalizing how incredibly violating this feels to me as a survivor of sexual assault.”

The individual pointed out that Rhodes was giving orders at RHAZ on Sunday and was using the alias “Julian” or “JuJu.” The Oregon State Police sex offender registry states that Rhodes uses the known alias “Jullian.”

Rhodes rose to prominence in Portland back in 2016 as a co-leader of Portland’s Resistance, an anti-Trump social justice group he co-founded with Gregory McKelvey. The group was closely aligned with both Antifa and Black Lives Matter. McKelvey recently served as the campaign director for self-described “antifa” mayoral candidate Sarah Iannarone, who lost to incumbent Ted Wheeler. McKelvey himself was previously arrested and charged over suspicion of kidnapping and strangling an underage girl. The details of that case are sealed from the public record.

In addition to Rhodes’ 2018 sex crimes conviction, he has a history of sexually assaulting children. When he was a teen, he was convicted in the juvenile court system of first-degree sodomy and sexual abuse. He had victimed a 9-year-old boy and three other boys whose ages have not been publicly disclosed.

He also has an additional extensive criminal history in Multnomah County that includes charges of disorderly conduct, interfering with public transportation and theft.

Rhodes was released from the Columbia River Correctional Institution in July after he and other self-identified “immunocompromised” plaintiffs sued Gov. Kate Brown and the Oregon Department of Corrections in federal court for failing to stop the spread of COVID-19 in correctional facilities. The joint lawsuit argued that the state placed vulnerable inmates at risk of infection. The plaintiffs are represented by far-left Portland legal group, the Oregon Justice Resource Center.

Though some in the Portland far-left activist scene have distanced themselves from Rhodes, he still finds active community support.

Radical BLM-Antifa activist Kiara Janae Horsley launched a GoFundMe page to support Rhodes earlier this year.

“As a gay, black male fighting for human rights in the public eye, he has faced countless personal threats, character assassination attempts, and far more than his fair share of targeted state suppression,” the crowdfunding campaign read. Horsley, a 26-year-old sex worker, is known by the pseudonyms “Lilith Sinclair” and “Lily Lyons.”

“The culmination of this accelerated targeting led to a hearing in front of a judge where he was sentenced to 30 months in prison, largely for the crime of having the audacity to fight against our broken system,” Horsley wrote in Rhodes’ fundraising campaign.

On Tuesday, some of the street barricades around RHAZ were removed following a negotiation between city officials and the family at the heart of the occupation. However, the Kinney family still refuses to leave the “red house.” They have not paid their mortgage since 2017 and in numerous frivolous lawsuits declared themselves citizens of a made-up country not subject to American jurisdiction.

Rhodes did not respond to an inquiry for comment.