Less than two months after pleading guilty to storming the U.S. Capitol, Texas resident Daniel Goodwyn appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show and promoted a website where supporters could donate money to Goodwyn and other mutineers whom the site called “political prisoners.”
The Justice Department now wants Goodwyn to forfeit more than $25,000 he collected, a recovery that is part of a growing government effort to prevent rioters from profiting personally from taking part in the attack that rocked the foundations of American democracy.
An Associated Press review of court records shows that prosecutors in more than 1,000 criminal cases as of Jan. 6, 2021 are increasingly asking judges to impose fines in addition to prison terms to offset donations from supporters of the rioters in capitol
Dozens of defendants have set up online fundraising resources for help with legal fees, and prosecutors acknowledge there’s nothing wrong with asking for help with legal fees. But the Justice Department, in some cases, has questioned where the money actually goes because many of the defendants have had government-funded legal representation.
Most of the fundraising efforts appear on GiveSendGo, which bills itself as “The #1 Free Christian Fundraising Site” and has become a haven for the Jan. 6 defendants who have been banned using widespread crowdfunding sites, including GoFundMe, to raise money. Insurgents often proclaim their innocence and portray themselves as victims of government oppression, even as they strike deals to plead guilty and cooperate with prosecutors.
His fundraising success suggests that many people in America still regard the January 6 rioters as patriots and cling to the baseless belief that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump. The former president himself has fueled this idea and promised to pardon the rioters if he is elected.
Markus Maly, a Virginia man who is scheduled to be sentenced next month for assaulting police at the Capitol, raised more than $16,000 from an online campaign that described him as a “Jan. 6 prisoner of war” and asked for money for his family. Prosecutors have asked for a fine of more than $16,000, noting that Maly had a public defender and owed no legal fees.
“He should not be able to use his own notoriety gained in the commission of his crimes to ‘capitalize’ on his participation in the breach of the Capitol in this way,” a prosecutor wrote in court documents.
So far this year, prosecutors have sought fines of more than $390,000 against at least 21 riot defendants, in amounts ranging from $450 to more than $71,000, according to the AP’s count.
Judges have imposed at least $124,127 in fines on 33 riot defendants this year. In the previous two years, judges ordered more than 100 riot defendants to collectively pay more than $240,000 in fines.
Separately, judges have ordered hundreds of convicted rioters to pay more than $524,000 in restitution to the government to cover more than $2.8 million in damage to the Capitol and other expenses related to Jan. 6.
More rioters are now being convicted and face the most serious charges and longest prison terms. They also tend to be prolific fundraisers, which could help explain the recent surge in fine requests.
Earlier this month, the judge who sentenced Nathaniel DeGrave to more than three years in prison also ordered him to pay a $25,000 fine. Prosecutors noted that the Nevada resident “amazingly” raised more than $120,000 in GiveSendGo fundraising campaigns that referred to him as “Beijing Biden’s political prisoner” in “America’s Gitmo,” a reference to the Guantánamo Bay Detention Center.
“He did this despite trying to cooperate with the government and admit that he and his co-conspirators were guilty at least as far back as November 2021,” a prosecutor wrote.
Attorney William Shipley, who has represented DeGrave and more than two dozen other defendants since Jan. 6, said he advises clients to avoid raising money under the auspices of being a political prisoner if they intend to plead- are guilty
“As long as they admit they’ve committed a crime, they have every right to shout from the rooftops that the only reason they’re being held is for politics,” Shipley said. “It’s just First Amendment political speech.”
Shipley said he provided the judge with documentation showing DeGrave collected roughly $25,000 more than he paid his attorneys.
“I’ve never had to do that until these cases because I’ve never had clients that had third-party fundraising like this,” Shipley said. “There is a segment of the population that sympathizes with the plight of these defendants.”
GiveSendGo co-founder Heather Wilson said her site’s decision to allow legal defense funds for those accused in the Capitol riots “is rooted in our society’s commitment to the presumption of innocence and the freedom to to all persons from hiring private lawyers”.
The government’s push for more fines comes as it reaches a milestone in the largest federal investigation in U.S. history: Just over 500 defendants have been convicted of crimes dating back to Jan. 6.
Judges are not stamping on prosecutors’ fine requests.
Prosecutors sought a fine of more than $70,000 for Peter Schwartz, a Kentucky man who attacked police officers outside the Capitol with pepper spray and a chair. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta sentenced Schwartz this month to more than 14 years in prison, one of the longest so far in a Capitol riot case, but imposed no fine.
Prosecutors suspect Schwartz tried to cash in on his fundraising campaign, “Patriot Pete Political Prisoner in DC.” But his lawyer, Dennis Boyle, said there is no evidence of that.
The judge “basically said if the money was being used for attorneys’ fees or other costs like that, there was no basis for a fine,” Boyle said.
A jury convicted romance novel cover model John Strand of storming the Capitol with Dr. Simone Gold, a California doctor who is a leading figure in the anti-vaccine movement. Prosecutors are now seeking a $50,000 fine in addition to prison time for Strand when a judge sentences him Thursday.
Strand has raised more than $17,300 for his legal defense without disclosing that he has a taxpayer-funded attorney, according to prosecutors. They say Strand appears to have “significant financial means,” living in a home that was purchased for more than $3 million last year.
“Strand has raised, and continues to raise, money on his website based on his false statements and misrepresentations about the events of January 6,” prosecutors wrote.
Goodwyn, who appeared on Carlson’s show in March, is scheduled to be sentenced next month. Defense attorney Carolyn Stewart described prosecutors as “demanding blood from a stone” in asking for the $25,000 fine.
“He received this amount in charity to help pay the legal fees of former attorneys and this for unknown reasons upsets the government,” Stewart wrote.
___
Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston contributed to this report.
___
This story has been corrected to reflect that Peter Schwartz’s sentence was one of the longest to date in a Capitol riot case, not the longest.
