WASHINGTON (AP) – Police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and public officials who fled a mob attack told a judge Wednesday that what they did still haunts them. suffer, while the judge prepares to hand down sentences. in a historic case of unrest in the Capitol.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta heard victim impact statements a day before he was expected to hand down the first seditious conspiracy convictions Jan. 6 against Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and an associate convicted of conspiring to block the transfer of power from President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden. .
Prosecutors are seeking 25 years behind bars for Rhodes, which would be by far the longest sentence handed down among hundreds of Capitol riot cases.
Metropolitan police officer Christopher Owens crossed paths with members of the Oath Keepers in the corridors of the Senate as rioters stormed the building, shouting insults and throwing projectiles at police. Owens recalled that his wife burst into tears when she saw the blood and bruises on his arms and legs after the riot.
“We experienced physical trauma, emotional trauma and mental trauma,” Owens said during the hearing in federal court in Washington. “The traumas we suffered that day were endless.”
Rhodes scribbled notes on a yellow legal pad as he listened to the depositions.
Terri McCullough, who was chief of staff to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said the rioters were trying to go after the California Democrat while his staff hunkered down in a conference room for hours, listening to chants and threats
“The defendants violated our workplace, our government and our democracy,” McCullough said, adding, “Democracy succeeded.”
Capitol Police Special Agent David Lazarus, who was assigned to Pelosi’s security detail, said some of his co-workers have quit because of what they experienced.
“Lives and careers have been ruined and will never go back to normal,” he said.
Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, who met Oath Keepers at the roundabout, said the riots turned the “citadel of American democracy” into a crime scene. Dunn said he is “a shell of his old self” and dreads coming to work every day.
While still scarred by Jan. 6, Dunn said he found “some relief” from the jury’s conviction of Rhodes and other Oath Keepers, adding that he is “deeply grateful that, in this case , justice has been done.”
The judge also heard statements from Virginia Brown, who was an assistant in the Senate chamber and helped carry a box of electoral votes through the Rotunda on January 6. As the mob broke through the Capitol, Brown took off his shoes so he could run faster. He remembered fearing for his life and praying he wouldn’t run into any rioters.
“I constantly relive the memories of that day,” said Brown, who was a college sophomore at the time. “I can’t count how many hours of sleep I’ve lost.”
Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy in November alongside the leader of the Florida chapter, Kelly Meggs, after prosecutors spent weeks arguing that Rhodes and his followers in the extremist group had planned an armed rebellion to keep Biden, a Democrat, out of the White House in favor of Trump. a republican
Rhodes, who did not enter the Capitol, took the stand at the trial and told jurors that there was never any plan to attack the Capitol and that his followers who did so went rogue.
Meggs will also be sentenced on Thursday, followed by two Oath Keepers on Friday who were acquitted of seditious conspiracy but convicted of other offences. Four other Oath Keepers convicted of sedition charges during a second trial in January will be sentenced next week.
Prosecutors are seeking prison terms ranging from 10 to 21 years for the Oath Keepers, in addition to Rhodes.
The judge canceled a scheduled sentencing this week for one defendant, Thomas Caldwell of Berryville, Virginia, as he weighs whether to overturn a jury’s guilty verdict on obstruction and one charge of tampering with documents.
Prosecutors are asking the judge to impose the highest penalties for terrorism, arguing that the Oath Keepers tried to influence the government through “intimidation or coercion.” Justices have so far rejected the Justice Department’s request to apply the so-called “terrorism enhancement” in a handful of Jan. 6 cases in which it has sought it so far, but the Oaths’ case Keepers is unlike any other that has come to judgment so far. .
More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes stemming from the riots. Just over 500 of them have been convicted, with more than half receiving prison terms ranging from a week to more than 14 years.
The Oath Keepers’ sentences may indicate how much time prosecutors will seek for the leaders of another far-right group, the Proud Boys, who were convicted of seditious conspiracy in a separate trial this month. Among those charged is former Proud Boys national president Enrique Tarrio, who is perhaps the most prominent person charged in the sprawling Jan. 6 investigation. The Proud Boys are scheduled to be sentenced in August and September.
During seven weeks of testimony, jurors heard how Rhodes rallied his followers to fight to defend Trump, discussed the prospect of a “bloody” civil war and warned that Oath Keepers may have to “stand up in an insurrection’ to defeat Biden if Trump didn’t. does not act
On January 6, Rhodes’ supporters pushed their way through the crowd in a military-style pile formation before forcing their way to the Capitol. The Oath Keepers had stored weapons at a hotel in Virginia for “rapid reaction force” teams that prosecutors said were prepared to bring weapons into the city quickly if needed. The weapons were never deployed.
Rhodes’ lawyers are urging the judge to sentence him to the roughly 16 months behind bars he has already served since his arrest in January 2022. In court documents filed this month, Rhodes’ lawyers argued that all the written and Rhodes’ statements were “protected political speech”.
“None of his protected speech incited or encouraged imminent violent or illegal acts, nor was any likely to occur as a result of his speech,” they wrote.
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Richer reported from Boston.
