Mason Joel Courson, 27, of Tamarac, Florida, was sentenced in District of Columbia federal court, according to court records. He pleaded guilty in November to assaulting, resisting or impeding a law enforcement officer with a dangerous weapon. The judge also ordered three years of supervised release and restitution of $2,000.

Courson was arrested in South Florida in December 2021.

According to court documents, Courson joined with others objecting to Democratic President Joe Biden’s election victory over former Republican President Donald Trump. A mob attacked the Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying election results, authorities said. Five people died in the violence.

According to an indictment, Courson participated in an assault of a Metropolitan Police Department officer who was beaten by a group armed with a baton, flagpole and crutch. Earlier that afternoon, Courson participated in “heave-ho” efforts to advance into the Capitol in the area of the Lower West Terrace tunnel leading into the building, officials said.

More than 1,000 people have been arrested in nearly all 50 states for alleged crimes related to the Capitol breach, officials said. More than 350 people have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.

David Walls-Kaufman of the Capitol Hill Chiropractic Center was arrested in June 2022 and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of “parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building,” in January.

Walls-Kaufman was originally scheduled to be sentenced in May, but Cobb delayed it after receiving letters from family members of the late Jeffrey Smith, a Metropolitan Police Department officer who died by suicide shortly after Jan. 6.

Smith’s widow filed a lawsuit against Walls-Kaufman and another man, Taylor Taranto, shortly after they were identified by online sleuths, accusing them of assaulting and playing a role in her husband’s death. 

For more on this story, go to NBC News.

Joshua Abate and Dodge Dale Hellonen are scheduled to be sentenced in September by U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes. Both pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia.

Many Capitol rioters are military veterans, but only a few were actively serving in the armed forces when they joined a mob’s attack on Jan. 6, 2021.

A third active-duty Marine, Micah Coomer, also was charged with Abate and Hellonen. Coomer pleaded guilty to the same misdemeanor charge in May and is scheduled to be sentenced by Reyes on Aug. 30.

All three men face a maximum sentence of six months of imprisonment.

As of May 19, the Marines were still in the service. No additional information was available Monday.

David Dischley, an attorney for Abate, declined to comment on his client’s guilty plea. An assistant public defender who represents Hellonen didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Authorities arrested the three men in January: Abate at Fort Meade, Maryland; Coomer in Oceanside, California; and Hellonen in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

Witnesses stationed with Coomer at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia and with Hellonen at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina identified them in videos of the Jan. 6 riot, according to the FBI. A third witness — also a Marine — identified Abate from footage captured inside the Capitol, the FBI said.

During a June 2022 for his security clearance, Abate said he and two “buddies” had walked through the Capitol on Jan. 6 “and tried not to get hit with tear gas,” according to an FBI special agent.

“Abate also admitted he heard how the event was being portrayed negatively and decided that he should not tell anybody about going into the U.S. Capitol Building,” the agent wrote in an affidavit.

After the riot, Coomer posted photos on Instagram with the caption “Glad to be (a part) of history.” The angles of the photos and the caption indicated he had been inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, the FBI said. The phone number listed for Coomer in his military personal file matched the Instagram account.

Coomer drove to Washington on the morning of Jan. 6 from his military post in Virginia. He attended then-President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally with Abate and Hellonen before they entered the Capitol. Inside the Rotunda, they placed a red “Make America Great Again” hat on a statute before taking photos of it, prosecutors said. The three men spent nearly an hour inside the Capitol before leaving.

Less than a month after the riot, Coomer told another Instagram user that he believed “everything in this country is corrupt.”

“We honestly need a fresh restart. I’m waiting for the boogaloo,” he wrote, according to the FBI.

When the other user asked what that term meant, Coomer wrote, “Civil war 2.”

“Boogaloo” movement supporters use the term as slang for a second civil war or collapse of civilization. They frequently show up at protests armed with rifles and wearing Hawaiian shirts under body armor.

Over 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes for their conduct at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Approximately 600 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors punishable by maximum terms of imprisonment of six months or one year.

___ Associated Press writer Lolita Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.

Daniel “D.J. ” Rodriquez pleaded guilty in February, admitting that he battled law enforcement officers on the steps of the Capitol on Jan. 6 and tased former D.C. Metropolitan Police officer Mike Fanone in the neck before storming the building and smashing out a window.

The government, in a sentencing memo filed late Friday, sought 168 months in federal prison along with restitution in the amount of $98,927, saying that Rodriguez’s crimes were acts of terrorism that deserve an upward departure from the sentencing guidelines. Judge Amy Berman Jackson will sentence Rodriguez on June 21.

For more on this story, go to NBC News.

Peter G. Moloney, 58, of Bayport, New York, faces numerous charges, including civil disorder and assaulting police officers, according to court documents. An email was sent to his defense attorney seeking comment, but there was no response.

He was released on a $100,000 bond after an initial court appearance, according to a spokesperson for the federal prosecutors’ office in New York.

Dan Moloney, his brother and co-owner of Moloney Family Funeral Homes, said in an emailed statement that the “alleged actions taken by an individual on his own time are in no way reflective of the core values” of the business, “which is dedicated to earning and maintaining the trust of all members of the community of every race, religion and nationality.”

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An FBI agent wrote in court papers that Peter Moloney appears to have come to the Capitol “prepared for violence,” with protective eyewear, a helmet and a can of insecticide — wasp, hornet & yellow jacket killer. Moloney was seen at the Capitol with a colleague, who authorities did not identify publicly.

Video shows him spraying the insecticide at officers who were desperately trying to beat back the angry mob and protect the Capitol, the agent wrote.

Authorities say video also shows Peter Moloney participating in an attack on an AP photographer, who was documenting the violence at the Capitol. Moloney grabbed the AP photographer’s camera and pulled, causing the photographer to stumble down the stairs, the agent wrote. Moloney was then seen “punching and shoving” the photographer before other rioters pushed the photographer over a wall, the agent wrote.

Authorities say he also grabbed another media member’s camera, causing that journalist to stumble down the stairs.

More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes in the riot that halted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory, and authorities continue to regularly make arrests more than two years later. Authorities are still working to identity a slew of rioters seen on camera storming the Capitol or engaging in violence.

Nearly 600 of them have pleaded guilty to riot-related charges, while more than 100 others have been convicted by judges or juries. More than 500 have been sentenced, with over half getting terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 18 years.

AP reporter Michael Kunzelman contributed from Silver Spring, Maryland.

Jay Johnston was arrested in Los Angeles on charges including civil disorder, a felony. He is expected to make his initial court appearance in California on Wednesday. Online court records don’t list an attorney for Johnston.

Video footage captured Johnston pushing against police and helping rioters who attacked officers guarding an entrance to the Capitol in a tunnel on the Lower West Terrace, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit. Johnston held a stolen police shield over his head and passed it to other rioters during the attack on Jan. 6, 2021, the affidavit says.

Johnston “was close to the entrance to the tunnel, turned back and signaled for other rioters to come towards the entrance,” the agent wrote.

Johnston was the voice of the character Jimmy Pesto on Fox’s “Bob’s Burgers.” The Daily Beast reported in December 2021 that Johnston was “banned” from the animated show after the Jan. 6 attack.

Johnston appeared on “Mr. Show with Bob and David,” an HBO sketch comedy series that starred Bob Odenkirk and David Cross. His credits also include small parts on the television show “Arrested Development” and in the movie “Anchorman,” starring Will Ferrell.

United Airlines records show Johnston booked a round-trip flight from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., departing on Jan. 4, 2021, and returning a day after the riot, according to the FBI. Thousands of people stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 after attending then-President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally.

While the mob attacked police in the tunnel with pepper spray and other weapons, Johnston helped other rioters near the tunnel pour water on their faces and then joined in pushing against the line of officers, the FBI says.

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“The rioters coordinated the timing of the pushes by yelling ‘Heave! Ho!’” the affidavit says.

Three current or former associates of Johnston identified him as a riot suspect from photos that the FBI published online, according to the agent. The FBI said one of those associates provided investigators with a text message in which Johnston acknowledged being at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

“The news has presented it as an attack. It actually wasn’t. Thought it kind of turned into that. It was a mess. Got maced and tear gassed and I found it quite untastic,” Johnston wrote, according to the FBI.

More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes for their conduct at the Capitol on a Jan. 6. More than 500 of them have been sentenced, with over half getting terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 18 years, according to an Associated Press review of court records.

Roberto Minuta, who was seen on video guarding Stone hours before the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, was among six Oath Keeper members convicted by jurors of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors said was a violent plot to stop the transfer of power from Trump to President Joe Biden after the 2020 election.

Minuta is the third Oath Keeper to receive his punishment for seditious conspiracy — the most serious charge the Justice Department has brought in the Capitol attack.

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was sentenced last week to 18 years behind bars — the longest sentence that has been handed down so far in hundreds of Capitol riot cases. Kelly Meggs, who led the group’s Florida chapter, was sentenced to 12 years.

Minuta told U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta that he is ashamed of his actions, disavows the Oath Keepers and was “repulsed” by the lack of remorse Rhodes showed at his own sentencing.

“My emotions got the best of me, and I’m deeply apologetic, your honor,” he told Mehta. “I was misled and naïve.”

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Before handing down the sentence of four years and six months, the judge told Minuta that the law doesn’t permit anybody to “gather up arms to battle your government.”

“This is not about politics. This is not about your beliefs. It’s about your conduct,” Mehta said.

Minuta, who owned a New York tattoo shop, was in communication on Jan. 6 with Rhodes, who described Minuta in a message as one of his “most trusted men,” according to federal prosecutors. Minuta purchased 5,500 rounds of ammunition as Jan. 6 approached, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said he hasn’t shown true remorse, noting that Minuta took to social media after his arrest to slam the investigation as politically motivated and referred to Jan. 6 defendants as “POLITICAL PRISONERS.” A fundraiser page that was linked to his Twitter page said the government “has been weaponized to destroy dissidents.”

“That’s his worldview,” Justice Department prosecutor Troy Edwards said. “Mr. Minuta is a danger to himself and to his republic because of his worldview.”

Lawyers for the Oath Keepers say there was never any plot to storm the Capitol or stop the transfer of power.

Minuta’s attorney, William Shipley, said his client came to Washington to serve in the Oath Keepers’ personal security detail for Stone and “had no intention or plan to engage in any other activity.”

Shipley said Minuta’s fears of government “tyranny” were not sparked by the baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, but grew out of his tattoo shop being shut down by lockdown measures during the coronavirus pandemic. Shipley said Minuta’s actions on Jan. 6 were “regrettable” and “idiotic.”

“But worthy of a multi-year prison sentence? I don’t think so,” he added.

Minuta was among several people in Oath Keepers gear seen flanking Stone on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6.

Stone, an informal Trump adviser, has denied having any knowledge of or involvement in anything illegal on Jan. 6.

The judge agreed with the Justice Department that Rhodes and the other Oath Keepers’ actions could be punished as “terrorism,” increasing the recommended sentence under federal guidelines. But the judge has consistently issued sentences shorter than those prosecutors have sought for Oath Keeper members. The Justice Department had sought 17 years for Minuta and 25 years for Rhodes.

Edward Vallejo, who was also convicted of seditious conspiracy, is expected to be sentenced later Thursday. Prosecutors said he was a leader of a “Quick Reaction Force” that stashed guns at a Virginia hotel and was prepared to bring them to Washington if called. The weapons were never deployed.

A day after the riot, Vallejo traveled into Washington to “conduct surveillance” and “probe the defense line” of police and National Guard troopers protecting the Capitol, according to prosecutors. He later tried to meet up with Rhodes in Texas.

Vallejo, a U.S. Army veteran, is a longtime resident of the Phoenix area. Defense attorney Matthew Peed said Vallejo wasn’t part of any Oath Keepers calls or discussions before he arrived in the Washington area a day before the riot. In court papers, his attorney called prosecutors’ argument that the Oath Keepers should be sentenced as terrorists “borderline offensive.”

“The tragedy of January 6 is that hundreds of lifelong law-abiding people like Edward Vallejo were lied to by the sitting President and told that the certification was an orchestrated assault on our democracy,” the defense attorney wrote wrote.

Last Friday, the judge handed down punishments for two other Oath Keepers who were acquitted of seditious conspiracy but convicted of other serious charges. Mehta sentenced Jessica Watkins, of Woodstock, Ohio, to eight years and six months behind bars and sentenced Kenneth Harrelson, of Titusville, Florida, to four years in prison.

The Oath Keepers sentencings come weeks after leaders of another far-right group — the Proud Boys — were also convicted in the Jan. 6 attack. Former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and three other group leaders were found guilty in May of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors said was a separate plot to keep Trump in the White House. They’re scheduled to be sentenced in August.

Pauline Bauer was near Pelosi’s office suite on Jan. 6, 2021, when she yelled at police officers to bring out the California Democrat so the mob of Donald Trump supporters could hang her.

In January, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden convicted Bauer of riot-related charges after hearing trial testimony without a jury. The judge sentenced her to two years and three months of imprisonment, giving her credit for the several months she already has served in jail, court records show.

Prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of six years and six months for Bauer, 55, of Kane, Pennsylvania.

Bauer was part of the mob that forced police officers on the East Plaza to retreat. After forcing her way into the Capitol, she accosted officers who were trying to secure the Rotunda, shoving one of them, and yelled at police to “bring them out or we’re coming in,” according to federal prosecutors.

“They’re criminals. They need to hang,” she screamed. “Bring Nancy Pelosi out here now. We want to hang (her). Bring her out.”

Other rioters shouted threats against Pelosi while they roamed through the Capitol.

“Bauer’s threat to hang Speaker Pelosi was real, imminent, and placed the Speaker of the House in danger,” prosecutor James Peterson wrote in a court filing.

Bauer traveled from her north Pennsylvania home to attend then-President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington on Jan. 6. She had attended a “Stop the Steal” rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a day earlier.

She came to Washington with at least five other people who have been charged in the Capitol riot, including co-defendant William Blauser, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge. Last year, McFadden ordered Blauser to pay a $500 fine but didn’t sentence him to any term of incarceration or probation.

McFadden convicted Bauer of all five counts in her indictment, including a felony charge that she obstructed the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress that certified President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.

Defense attorney Komron Jon Maknoon said Bauer never intended to interfere with the process of certifying the Electoral College vote. She “genuinely regrets her past actions” and doesn’t pose a threat to the public, her lawyer said.

“The international spotlight showcasing her at her worst has deeply affected her,” Maknoon wrote.

Prosecutors said Bauer lied during her trial testimony, giving a bogus explanation for her confrontation with police and claiming she didn’t remember threatening Pelosi.

Bauer has used “sovereign citizen” extremist rhetoric and filed “nonsense” court documents while defending herself, prosecutors said.

More than a year before the trial, McFadden ordered Bauer to be jailed for several months for violating conditions of her release. She had claimed the court has no authority over her and told the judge that she doesn’t want “any lawyering from the bench.”

During an interview in 2021, Bauer said her arrest on Capitol riot charges led to a mixed reaction from neighbors in Kane, a small town on the edge of the 517,000-acre Allegheny National Forest.

“A lot of people say that they’re proud of me for standing up for my rights,” she told The Associated Press.

Bauer said her restaurant, Bob’s Trading Post, was thriving before the COVID-19 pandemic. She became known in her hometown as an outspoken critic of lockdown measures that cost her business.

More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes for their conduct on Jan. 6. More than 500 of them have been sentenced, with over half receiving terms of imprisonment ranging from one week to 18 years.

The Justice Department now wants Goodwyn to give up more than $25,000 he raised — a clawback that is part of a growing effort by the government to prevent rioters from being able to personally profit from participating in the attack that shook the foundations of American democracy.

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An Associated Press review of court records shows that prosecutors in the more than 1,000 criminal cases from Jan. 6, 2021, are increasingly asking judges to impose fines on top of prison sentences to offset donations from supporters of the Capitol rioters.

Dozens of defendants have set up online fundraising appeals for help with legal fees, and prosecutors acknowledge there’s nothing wrong with asking for help for attorney expenses. But the Justice Department has, in some cases, questioned where the money is really going because many of those charged 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 Jan. 6 defendants barred from using mainstream crowdfunding sites, including GoFundMe, to raise money. The rioters often proclaim their innocence and portray themselves as victims of government oppression, even as they cut deals to plead guilty and cooperate with prosecutors.

Their fundraising success suggests that many people in the United States still view Jan. 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 that idea, pledging to pardon rioters if he is elected.

Markus Maly, a Virginia man 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 “January 6 P.O.W.” and asked for money for his family. Prosecutors have requested a $16,000-plus fine, noting that Maly had a public defender and did not owe any 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 Capitol breach in this way,” a prosecutor wrote in court papers.

So far this year, prosecutors have sought more than $390,000 in fines against at least 21 riot defendants, in amounts ranging from $450 to more than $71,000, according to the AP’s tally.

Judges have imposed at least $124,127 in fines against 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 Jan. 6-related expenses.

More rioters facing the most serious charges and longest prison terms are now being sentenced. They tend to also be the prolific fundraisers, which could help explain the recent surge in fines 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 “incredibly” raised over $120,000 in GiveSendGo fundraising campaigns that referred to him as “Beijing Biden’s political prisoner” in “America’s Gitmo” — a reference to the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

“He did this despite seeking to cooperate with the government and admitting he and his co-conspirators were guilty since at least November 2021,” a prosecutor wrote.

Lawyer William Shipley, who has represented DeGrave and more than two dozen other Jan. 6 defendants, said he advises clients to avoid raising money under the auspices of being a political prisoner if they intend to plead guilty.

“Until they admit they committed a crime, they’re perfectly entitled to shout from the rooftops that the only reason they’re being held is because of politics,” Shipley said. “It’s just First Amendment political speech.”

Shipley said he provided the judge with documentation showing that DeGrave raised approximately $25,000 more than what he paid his lawyers.

“I’ve never had to do it until these cases because I’ve never had clients that had third-party fundraising like this,” Shipley said. “There’s a segment of the population that is sympathetic toward the plight of these defendants.”

GiveSendGo co-founder Heather Wilson said her site’s decision to allow legal defense funds for Capitol riot defendants “is rooted in our society’s commitment to the presumption of innocence and the freedom for all individuals to hire private attorneys.”

The government’s push for more fines comes as it reaches a milestone in the largest federal investigation in American history: Just over 500 defendants have been sentenced for Jan. 6 crimes.

Judges aren’t rubber-stamping prosecutors’ fine requests.

Prosecutors sought a more than $70,000 fine 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 didn’t impose a fine.

Prosecutors suspect Schwartz tried to profit from 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 that 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 physician who is a leading figure in the anti-vaccine movement. Now prosecutors are seeking a $50,000 fine on top of a prison term for Strand when a judge sentences him on Thursday.

Strand has raised more than $17,300 for his legal defense without disclosing that he has a taxpayer-funded lawyer, according to prosecutors. They say Strand appears to have “substantial 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 upon his false statements and misrepresentations on the events of January 6,” prosecutors wrote.

Goodwyn, who appeared on Carlson’s show in March, is scheduled to be sentenced next month. Defense lawyer Carolyn Stewart described prosecutors as “demanding blood from a stone” in asking for the $25,000 fine.

“He received that amount in charity to help him in his debt for legal fees for former attorneys and this for unknown reasons is bothersome to the government,” Stewart wrote.

___

Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston contributed to this report.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta sentenced Jessica Watkins, of Woodstock, Ohio, to eight years and six months behind bars and sentenced Kenneth Harrelson, of Titusville, Florida, to four years in prison.

A federal jury acquitted Watkins and Harrelson of the seditious conspiracy charge that Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was found guilty of in November. But jurors convicted Watkins and Harrelson of other Jan. 6 charges, including obstructing Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.

Rhodes’ 18-year term is the longest prison sentence that has been handed down so far in the hundreds of Capitol riot cases. The charges against leaders of the Oath Keepers and another extremist group, the Proud Boys, are among the most serious brought in the Justice Department’s massive investigation of the riot.

Mehta agreed with the Justice Department that Rhodes and the other Oath Keepers’ actions could be punished as “terrorism,” increasing the recommended sentence under federal guidelines.

But the judge ultimately gave Watkins and Harrelson far less time than prosecutors were seeking. The Justice Department had requested 18 years for Watkins and 15 for Harrelson.

Watkins and Harrelson marched toward the Capitol with other Oath Keepers members in “stack” formations as a mob of Trump supporters clashed with outnumbered police officers. Harrelson was the group’s “ground team lead” on Jan. 6. Watkins, who formed a separate Ohio-based militia group, recruited others to join the Oath Keepers in Washington that day.

Mehta said that while Watkins was not a top leader, like Rhodes, she was more than just a “foot soldier,” noting that at least three others charged in the riot wouldn’t have been there if she hadn’t recruited them to join.

“Your role that day was more aggressive, more assaultive, more purposeful than perhaps others,” he told her.

Watkins tearfully apologized for her actions before the judge handed down her sentence. She condemned the violence by rioters who assaulted police, but conceded that her presence at the Capitol “probably inspired those people to a degree.” She described herself as “just another idiot running around the Capitol” on Jan. 6.

“And today you’re going to hold this idiot responsible,” she told the judge.

The judge said Watkins’ personal story of struggling for years to come to terms with her identity as a transgender woman made it especially difficult for him to understand why she has shown “a lack of empathy for those who suffered” on Jan. 6. Watkins testified at trial about hiding her identity from her parents during a strict Christian upbringing and going AWOL in the Army after a fellow soldier found evidence of her contact with a support group for transgender people.

Harrelson told the judge he went to Washington after another Oath Keeper offered him a “security job,” but said he has never voted for a president in his life and doesn’t care about politics. Some of the Oath Keepers provided security for Trump ally Roger Stone and other right-wing figures at events before the riot.

“I have totally demolished my life,” he said as he broke down in tears. “I am responsible, and my foolish actions have caused immense pain to my wife and our children.”

Mehta said he doesn’t agree with the government’s portrayal of Harrelson as a “mid-level organizer” for the Oath Keepers. Unlike many other group members charged in the attack, Harrelson didn’t send any messages “that anyone would consider extremist,” the judge said.

But the judge said he was struck by an image of Harrelson patting down a police officer on his way out of the Capitol.

“You weren’t just there that day because you got swept in,” the judge told him.

During a nearly two-month trial in Washington’s federal court, lawyers for Watkins and the other Oath Keepers argued there was no plan to attack the Capitol. On the witness stand, Watkins told jurors she never intended to interfere with the certification and never heard any commands for her and other Oath Keepers to enter the building.

Evidence shown to jurors showed Watkins after the 2020 election messaging with people who expressed interest in joining her Ohio militia group about “military-style basic” training. She told one recruit, “I need you fighting fit” by the inauguration, which was Jan. 20, 2021.

On Jan. 6, Watkins and other Oath Keepers wearing helmets and other paramilitary gear were seen shouldering their way through the crowd and up the Capitol stairs in military-style stack formation. She communicated with others during the riot over a channel called “Stop the Steal J6″ on the walkie-talkie app Zello, declaring, “We are in the main dome right now.”

Harrelson screamed “Treason!” — an epithet directed at members of Congress — as he entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, a prosecutor said.

One of their other co-defendants, Florida chapter leader Kelly Meggs, was sentenced Thursday to 12 years behind bars for seditious conspiracy and other charges.

Rhodes, 58, of Granbury, Texas, was the first Jan. 6 defendant convicted of seditious conspiracy to receive his punishment for what prosecutors said was a weekslong plot to forcibly block the transfer of power from former President Donald Trump to Biden. Four other Oath Keepers convicted of the sedition charge during a second trial in January will be sentenced next week.

During his sentencing Thursday, Rhodes defiantly claimed to be a “political prisoner,” criticized prosecutors and the Biden administration and tried to play down his actions on Jan. 6. The judge described Rhodes as a continued threat to the United States who clearly “wants democracy in this country to devolve into violence.”

The Oath Keepers’ sentences this week could serve as a guide for prosecutors in a separate Jan. 6 case against leaders of the Proud Boys. Earlier this month, a different jury convicted former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and three other group leaders of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors said was another plot to keep Trump in the White House.

Before Thursday, the longest sentence in the more than 1,000 Capitol riot cases was 14 years and two months for a man with a long criminal record who attacked police officers with pepper spray and a chair as he stormed the Capitol. Just over 500 of the defendants have been sentenced, with more than half receiving prison time.

___

Richer reported from Boston.

Rhodes, 58, is the first person convicted of seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack to receive his punishment, and his sentence is the longest handed down so far in the hundreds of Capitol riot cases.

It’s another milestone for the Justice Department’s sprawling Jan. 6 investigation, which has led to seditious conspiracy convictions against the top leaders of two far-right extremist groups authorities say came to Washington prepared to fight to keep President Donald Trump in power at all costs.

“The Justice Department will continue to do everything in our power to hold accountable those criminally responsible for the January 6th attack on our democracy,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

In a first for a Jan. 6 case, the judge agreed with the Justice Department that Rhodes’ actions should be punished as “terrorism,” which increases the recommended sentence under federal guidelines. That decision could foreshadow lengthy sentences down the road for other far-right extremists, including former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who have also been convicted of the rarely used charge.

Before announcing Rhodes’ sentence, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta described a defiant Rhodes as a continued threat to the United States and democracy. The judge expressed fear that what happened on Jan. 6 could be repeated, saying Americans will “now hold our collective breaths every time an election is approaching.”

“You are smart, you are charismatic and compelling and frankly that’s what makes you dangerous,” the judge told Rhodes. “The moment you are released, whenever that may be, you will be ready to take up arms against your government.”

Rhodes did not use his chance to address the judge to express remorse or appeal for leniency, but instead claimed to be a “political prisoner,” criticized prosecutors and the Biden administration and tried to play down his actions on Jan. 6.

“I’m a political prisoner and like President Trump my only crime is opposing those who are destroying our country,” said Rhodes, who appeared in Washington’s federal court wearing orange jail clothes.

Mehta fired back that Rhodes was not prosecuted for his political beliefs but for actions the judge described as an “offense against the people of the country.”

“You are not a political prisoner, Mr. Rhodes,” the judge said.

Another Oath Keeper convicted of seditious conspiracy alongside Rhodes — Florida chapter leader Kelly Meggs — was sentenced later Thursday to 12 years behind bars.

Meggs said he was sorry he was involved in the riot that left a “black eye on the country,” but maintained that he never planned to go into the Capitol.

The judge found Meggs doesn’t present an ongoing threat to the country the way Rhodes does, but told him “violence cannot be resorted to just because you disagree with who got elected.”

Other Oath Keepers are expected to be sentenced Friday and next week.

A Washington, D.C., jury found Rhodes guilty of leading a plot to forcibly disrupt the transfer of presidential power. Prosecutors alleged Rhodes and his followers recruited members, amassed weapons and set up “quick reaction force” teams at a Virginia hotel that could ferry guns into the nation’s capital if they were needed to support their plot. The weapons were never deployed.

It was one of the most consequential Capitol riot cases brought by the government, which has sought to prove that the attack by right-wing extremists such as the Oath Keepers was not a spur-of-the-moment protest but the culmination of weeks of plotting to overturn Biden’s victory.

Rhodes’ January 2022 arrest was the culmination of a decades-long path of extremism that included armed standoffs with federal authorities at Nevada’s Bundy Ranch. After founding the Oath Keepers in 2009, the Yale Law School graduate built it into one of the largest far-right antigovernment militia groups in the U.S., though it appears to have weakened in the wake of the Oath Keepers’ arrests.

The judge agreed to prosecutors’ request for a so-called “terrorism enhancement” — which can lead to a longer prison term — under the argument that the Oath Keepers sought to influence the government through “intimidation or coercion.” Judges in less serious Jan. 6 cases had previously rejected such requests.

Prosecutors had sought 25 years for Rhodes, arguing that a lengthy sentence was necessary to deter future political violence.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn Rakoczy pointed to interviews and speeches Rhodes has given from jail repeating the lie that the 2020 election was stolen and saying it would be again in 2024. In remarks just days ago, Rhodes called for “regime change,” the prosecutor said.

Rhodes, of Granbury, Texas, plans to appeal his conviction.

Defense lawyer Phillip Linder told the judge that prosecutors were unfairly trying to make Rhodes “the face” of Jan. 6, adding that Rhodes could have had many more Oath Keepers come to the Capitol “if he really wanted to” disrupt Congress’ certification of the Electoral College vote.

“If you want to put a face on J6 (Jan. 6), you put it on Trump, right-wing media, politicians, all the people who spun that narrative,” Linder said.

Rhodes’ sentence may signal the punishment prosecutors will seek for Tarrio and other Proud Boys leaders convicted of seditious conspiracy. They will be sentenced in August and September.

The Oath Keepers said there was never any plan to attack the Capitol or stop Congress from certifying Biden’s victory. The defense tried to seize on the fact that none of the Oath Keepers’ messages laid out an explicit plan to storm the Capitol. But prosecutors said the Oath Keepers saw an opportunity to further their goal to stop the transfer of power and sprang into action when the mob began storming the building.

Messages, recordings and other evidence presented at trial show Rhodes and his followers growing increasingly enraged after the 2020 election at the prospect of a Biden presidency, which they viewed as a threat to the country and their way of life. In an encrypted chat two days after the election, Rhodes told his followers to prepare their “mind, body, spirit” for “civil war.”

Before Thursday, the longest sentence in the more than 1,000 Capitol riot cases was 14 years for a man with a long criminal record who attacked police officers with pepper spray and a chair as he stormed the Capitol. Just over 500 of the defendants have been sentenced, with more than half receiving prison time and the remainder getting sentences such as probation or home detention.

___

Richer reported from Boston.

Richard “Bigo” Barnett became one of the faces of the Jan. 6 riot by supporters of then-President Donald Trump, and U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said in announcing that sentence that Barnett seemed at times to enjoy the notoriety.

“All the folks who follow ‘Bigo’ need to know the actions of Jan. 6 cannot be repeated without some serious repercussions,” Cooper said, alluding to the media attention and social media following Barnett attracted after the riot.

The 54-month sentence for Barnett, a retired firefighter from Gravette, Arkansas, comes after he was convicted at trial on eight counts, including felony charges of civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding, in this case a Jan. 6, 2021, session of Congress to certify Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

The photos of Barnett lounging at a desk in Pelosi’s office made him one of the most memorable figures from the riot. Barnett, 63, testified he was “going with the flow” and struck a pose after news photographers told him to “act natural.”

He told the judge that joining the riot was “an enigma my life” that he regretted, but said prosecutors wanted him to be “remorseful for things I did not do.”

“Jan. 6 was a traumatic dey for everyone, not just law enforcement,” he said. He has vowed to appeal his conviction. He testified at trial that he was swept along with the crowd into the Capitol, and was looking for a bathroom when he unwittingly entered Pelosi’s office and encountered two news photographers.

Cooper, though, said he did not believe Barnett played such a passive role.

It was established at trial that Barnett brought into the Capitol a stun gun with spikes, concealed within a collapsible walking stick. Barnett also took a piece of Pelosi’s mail and left behind a note that said, “Nancy, Bigo was here,” punctuating the message with a sexist expletive.

Before leaving Capitol grounds, Barnett used a bullhorn to give a speech to the crowd, shouting, “We took back our house, and I took Nancy Pelosi’s office!” according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors also said Barnett has since posted “falsehoods” on social media about Jan. 6 and downplaying his role. “The defendant still believes he can say or do whatever he wants and if someone else is threatened by it, that’s their problem,” prosecutor Alison Prout said.

Defense attorney Jonathan Gross said Barnett didn’t hurt anyone or damage property, and was being singled out because the photo had made him famous.

“Mr. Barnett should not be punished because the government thinks he’s a symbol,” he said.

Cooper’s sentence fell short of the approximately seven years prosecutors sought, though it was more than defense attorneys’ request for a 12-month term.

More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot. Just over 500 of them have been sentenced. More than half have received prison terms ranging from a week to over 14 years.

Also sentenced Wednesday was Robert Morss of Glenshaw, Pennsylvania. He got more than five years in prison after being convicted on three counts. Prosecutors say Morss dressed in fatigues and tried to take a baton from an officer, as well as shields, while working to organize members of the crowd to push past Capitol guards.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss sentenced Donald Hazard to four years and nine months in prison followed by three months of supervised release for his role in the riot at the Capitol, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia.

The sentence matched what federal prosecutors had recommended for Hazard, who pleaded guilty to an assault charge in February.

Hazard, 44, of Hurst, Texas, was a member of a militia called the Patriot Boys of North Texas. Lucas Denney, the group’s self-proclaimed president, appointed Hazard as its sergeant-at-arms. Denney also encouraged Hazard to stock up on weapons and protective gear and recruit others to join them in Washington, D.C., prosecutors said.

Hazard was “eager for violence” on Jan. 6, wearing a tactical vest and a helmet adorned with the image of the Confederate battle flag, Justice Department prosecutor Benet Kearney wrote in a court filing.

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After marching to the Capitol, Hazard clashed with officers who were trying to hold off the mob near scaffolding on the northwest side of the building. Hazard grabbed a Capitol police officer and pulled him down a set of concrete steps, knocking him unconscious. That officer was treated for a concussion and foot injuries that required multiple surgeries, according to prosecutors.

Hazard also fell on another Capitol police officer whose head hit the concrete. Hazard and Denney, both wielding what appeared to be canisters of pepper spray, confronted other officers on the west side of the Capitol.

Hazard briefly entered the Capitol before police pushed him and other rioters out of the building.

“When he reached the exterior steps, Hazard raised his arms in a gesture of victory,” Kearney wrote.

In the days after Jan. 6, Hazard bragged on Facebook about storming the Capitol and fighting with police.

“The only regret Hazard expressed was that he no longer had the photographs and videos he took that day,” Kearney wrote.

Defense attorney Ubong Akpan said Hazard had no plan to attack officers.

“His actions were more of a reaction to what he saw that day, as opposed to a plan to attack law enforcement, a group he thought he was similarly situated with,” Akpan wrote in a court filing.

Video shows that Hazard didn’t forcibly assault the officers in the scaffolding, his lawyer argued.

“His conduct was more consistent with impeding officers and his impeding led to bodily injuries of the officers,” Akpan wrote.

Hazard was charged with Denney, who pleaded guilty to an assault charge and was sentenced last September to four years and four months in prison.

More than 100 police officers were injured at the Capitol on Jan. 6, as rioters disrupted Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory over Republican incumbent Donald Trump.

Over 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the riot. Approximately 500 of them have been sentenced, with more than half receiving terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to over 14 years.

FBI officials said the thousands of violations, which also include improper searches of donors to a congressional campaign, predated a series of corrective measures that started in the summer of 2021 and continued last year. But the problems could nonetheless complicate FBI and Justice Department efforts to receive congressional reauthorization of a warrantless surveillance program that law enforcement officials say is needed to counter terrorism, espionage and international cybercrime.

The violations were detailed in a secret court order issued last year by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has legal oversight of the U.S. government’s spy powers. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a redacted version on Friday in what officials said was the interest of transparency. Members of Congress received the order when it was issued last year.

“Today’s disclosures underscore the need for Congress to rein in the FBI’s egregious abuses of this law, including warrantless searches using the names of people who donated to a congressional candidate,” said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the ACLU’s National Security Project. “These unlawful searches undermine our core constitutional rights and threaten the bedrock of our democracy. It’s clear the FBI can’t be left to police itself.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and member of the Senate intelligence committee, called the findings “shocking” and said statutory reforms to “ensure that the checks and balances are in place to put an end to these abuses” were needed if the surveillance program is to be renewed.

At issue are improper queries of foreign intelligence information collected under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which enables the government to gather the communications of targeted foreigners outside the U.S. without a warrant That program expires at the end of the year unless it is renewed.

The program creates a database of intelligence that U.S. agencies can search under limited circumstances. FBI queries must have a foreign intelligence purpose or be aimed at finding evidence of a crime. But congressional critics of the program have long raised alarm about what they say are unjustified searches for information about Americans, along with more general concerns about perceived surveillance abuse.

Concerns about the program have aligned staunch liberal defenders of civil liberties with supporters of former President Donald Trump who have seized on FBI surveillance errors during an investigation into potential ties between Russia and his 2016 campaign. The issue has flared as the Republican-led House has been targeting the FBI, creating a committee to investigate the “weaponization” of government, and as a special counsel report released this week has documented FBI mistakes in the Trump-Russia probe.

In repeated episodes disclosed Friday, the FBI’s own standards were not followed.

The April 2022 order, for instance, details how the FBI queried the Section 702 repository using the name of someone who was then believed to have been at the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot. But the information that was obtained was not used for any “analytical, investigative or evidentiary purpose,” the order said.

The order also says that an FBI analyst ran 13 queries of people suspected of being involved in the Capitol riot to assess whether they had any foreign ties, but the Justice Department later determined that the searches were not likely to find foreign intelligence information or evidence of a crime.

Other violations occurred when FBI officials in June 2020 ran searches related to more than 100 people arrested in connection with civil unrest and racial justice protests that had occurred in the U.S. over the preceding weeks following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. The query was run to determine if the FBI had any “counter-terrorism derogatory information” on the arrestees, according to the order. The FBI had maintained that the searches were likely to return foreign intelligence information, though the reasons for that assessment are redacted in part.

In addition, the FBI conducted what’s known as a batch query for 19,000 donors to an unnamed congressional campaign. An analyst doing the search cited concern that the campaign was a target of foreign influence, but the Justice Department said only “eight identifiers used in the query had sufficient ties to foreign influence activities to comply with the querying standard.”

Officials said the case involved a candidate who ran unsuccessfully for office and is not a sitting member of Congress. It is unrelated to an episode described in March by Rep. Darin LaHood, an Illinois Republican, who accused the FBI of wrongly searching for his name in foreign surveillance data.

Senior FBI officials, speaking Friday on condition of anonymity to reporters under ground rules set by the government, attributed the majority of the violations to confusion among the workforce and a lack of common understanding about the querying standards.

They said the bureau has made significant changes since then, including mandating training and overhauling its computer system so that FBI officials must now enter a justification for the search in their own words than relying on a drop-down menu with pre-populated choices.

The FBI said an internal audit of a representative sample of searches showed an increased compliance rate from 82% before the reforms were implemented to 96% afterward.

In the order, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras, the presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, said he was encouraged by the reforms and said some appear to be having the “desired effect.”

“Nonetheless,” he noted, “compliance problems with the FBI’s querying of Section 702 information have proven to be persistent and widespread. If they are not substantially mitigated by these recent measures, it may become necessary to consider other responses, such as substantially limiting the number of FBI personnel with access to unminimized Section 702 information.”

_____

Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP

“I am inclined to pardon many of them,” Trump said during a town hall hosted by CNN at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire. “I can’t say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably they got out of control.”

He added that, “most likely,” he would pardon “a large portion of them.”

“And it’ll be very early on,” Trump said.

More than 600 people involved in the Jan. 6 attack have been convicted, with more than 480 sentenced. Hundreds of additional Jan. 6 rioters have been identified but not yet charged.

In his bid for president, Trump has been embracing the cause of his supporters who stormed the Capitol in their attempt to deny Joe Biden the presidency after the 2020 election.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com here.

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden ordered Virginia resident Hatchet Speed to serve the four-year sentence after he completes a separate three-year prison term for a conviction on firearms offenses, court records show.

The FBI recorded Speed’s conversations with the undercover agent more than a year after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. The agent posed as “a like-minded individual” while meeting with Speed at least three times in 2022.

Speed, 41, was “deeply worried” about Democrat Joe Biden’s presidency and believed false claims that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from Donald Trump, the Republican incumbent, prosecutors wrote in a court filing. He told the undercover agent that he believes Jewish people control Biden.

Speed expressed his admiration for Hitler during the recorded conversation, calling him “one of the best people that’s ever been on this earth.” He also “outlined a plan to enlist Christians to wipe out the country’s entire Jewish population,” prosecutors said in a court filing.

“It is not clear why this military veteran with a (security) clearance became enamored with Hitler, began to embrace street fighting, and call for the execution of the country’s entire Jewish population,” prosecutors wrote. “What is clear, though, is that this defendant committed a serious offense and continues to threaten the safety of the community, posing a serious danger.”

McFadden heard trial testimony without a jury before convicting Speed of all five charges in his indictment, including a felony count of obstructing the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress for certifying the Electoral College vote. The judge also convicted Speed of four misdemeanors.

Speed’s four-year sentence matched the prison term recommended by prosecutors. McFadden also sentenced Speed to three years of supervised release after his prison term and ordered him to pay a $10,000 fine plus $2,000 in restitution.

The undercover agent testified under a pseudonym at a separate trial for Speed in Virginia on gun charges. After a retrial in January, a jury convicted Speed of three counts of unlawful possession of an unregistered firearm silencer. In April, U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff sentenced Speed to three years in prison.

Speed was a member of the Proud Boys, joining the far-right extremist group in 2020, according to prosecutors. He also was a petty officer first class in the U.S. Naval Reserves and was assigned to the Naval Warfare Space Field Activity at the National Reconnaissance Office, the FBI said.

The National Reconnaissance Office operates U.S. spy satellites used by the Pentagon and intelligence agencies. The agency said Speed was not part of the reserve unit at the time of the Capitol riot.

On Jan. 6, Speed drove to Washington, D.C, from his home in Vienna, Virginia. After attending the “Stop the Steal” rally, where Trump addressed a crowd of supporters, Speed joined other Proud Boys in marching to the Capitol.

Around 3 p.m., Speed entered the building through a door to the Senate wing of the Capitol after other rioters breached it. He remained inside the Capitol for roughly 40 minutes.

Speed was arrested in June 2022 on riot-related misdemeanor charges. A grand jury later indicted him on the felony obstruction charge.

Speed’s conduct on Jan. 6 ”was one step on a disturbing path toward racially motivated criminal conduct — that ultimately featured plans for the kidnapping and mass murder of civilians,” prosecutors wrote.

Peter Schwartz’s prison sentence is the longest so far among hundreds of Capitol riot cases. The judge who sentenced Schwartz also handed down the previous longest sentence — 10 years — to a retired New York Police Department officer who assaulted a police officer outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of 24 years and 6 months for Schwartz, a welder.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta sentenced Schwartz to 14 years and two months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.

Mehta said Schwartz was a “soldier against democracy” who participated in “the kind of mayhem, chaos that had never been seen in the country’s history.”

“You are not a political prisoner,” the judge told hm. “You’re not somebody who is standing up against injustice or fighting against an autocratic regime.”

Schwartz briefly addressed the judge before learning his sentence, saying, “I do sincerely regret the damage that Jan. 6 has caused to so many people and their lives.”

The judge said he didn’t believe Schwartz’s statement, noting his lack of remorse.

“You took it upon yourself to try and injure multiple police officers that day,” Mehta said.

Schwartz was armed with a wooden tire knocker when he and his then-wife, Shelly Stallings, joined other rioters in overwhelming a line of police officers on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace, where he threw a folding chair at officers.

“By throwing that chair, Schwartz directly contributed to the fall of the police line that enabled rioters to flood forward and take over the entire terrace,” prosecutor Jocelyn Bond wrote in a court filing.

Schwartz, 49, also armed himself with a police-issued “super soaker” canister of pepper spray and sprayed it at retreating officers. Advancing to a tunnel entrance, Schwartz coordinated with two other rioters, Markus Maly and Jeffrey Brown, to spray an orange liquid toward officers clashing with the mob.

“While the stream of liquid did not directly hit any officer, its effect was to heighten the danger to the officers in that tunnel,” Bond wrote.

Before leaving, Schwartz joined a “heave ho” push against police in the tunnel.

Stallings pleaded guilty last year to riot-related charges and was sentenced last month to two years of incarceration.

Schwartz was tried with co-defendants Maly and Brown. In December, a jury convicted all three of assault charges and other felony offenses.

Mehta sentenced Brown last Friday to four years and six months in prison. Maly is scheduled to be sentenced June 9.

Schwartz’s attorneys requested a prison sentence of four years and six months. They said his actions on Jan. 6 were motivated by a “misunderstanding” about the 2020 presidential election. Then-President Donald Trump and his allies spread baseless conspiracy theories that Democrats stole the election from the Republican incumbent.

“There remain many grifters out there who remain free to continue propagating the ‘great lie’ that Trump won the election, Donald Trump being among the most prominent. Mr. Schwartz is not one of these individuals; he knows he was wrong,” his defense lawyers wrote.

Prosecutors said Schwartz has bragged about his participation in the riot, shown no remorse and claimed that his prosecution was politically motivated. He referred to the Capitol attack as the “opening of a war” in a Facebook post a day after the riot.

“I was there and whether people will acknowledge it or not we are now at war,” Schwartz wrote.

Schwartz has raised over $71,000 from an online campaign entitled “Patriot Pete Political Prisoner in DC.” Prosecutors asked Mehta to order Schwartz to pay a fine equaling the amount raised by his campaign, arguing that he shouldn’t profit from participating in the riot.

Schwartz was on probation when he joined the Jan. 6 riot. His criminal record includes a “jaw-dropping” 38 prior convictions since 1991, “several of which involved assaulting or threatening officers or other authority figures,” Bond wrote.

Schwartz was working as a welder in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, before his arrest in February 2021, but he considers his home to be in Owensboro, Kentucky, according to his attorneys.

More than 100 police officers were injured during the riot. More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to Jan. 6. Nearly 500 of them have been sentenced, with over half getting terms of imprisonment.

The 10-year prison sentence that Mehta handed down in September to retired NYPD officer Thomas Webster had remained the longest until Friday. Webster had used a metal flagpole to assault an officer and then tackled the same officer as the mob advanced toward the Capitol.

Former Proud Boys Leader Enrique Tarrio, Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean and Zachary Rehl  were found guilty on the charge of seditious conspiracy under a Civil War-era statute. They also were found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.

Jurors cleared a fifth defendant — Dominic Pezzola — of the sedition charge, though he was convicted of other serious felonies. The judge excused the jury without delivering a verdict on some counts — including another conspiracy charge for Pezzola — after jurors failed to reach a unanimous decision.

Members of the far-right extremist group were accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol in a desperate bid to keep Donald Trump in power after the Republican lost the 2020 presidential election.

A jury in Washington, D.C., found Tarrio guilty of seditious conspiracy after hearing from dozens of witnesses over more than three months in one of the most serious cases brought in the stunning attack that unfolded on Jan. 6, 2021, as the world watched on live TV.

It’s a significant milestone for the Justice Department, which has now secured seditious conspiracy convictions against the leaders of two major extremist groups prosecutors say were intent on keeping Democrat Joe Biden out of the White House at all costs. The charge carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years.

Tarrio was a top target of what has become the largest Justice Department investigation in American history. He led the neo-fascist group — known for street fights with left-wing activists — when Trump infamously told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during his first debate with Biden.

Tarrio wasn’t in Washington on Jan. 6, because he had been arrested two days earlier in a separate case and ordered out of the capital city. But prosecutors said he organized and directed the attack by Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol that day.

Prosecutors told jurors the group viewed itself as “Trump’s army” and was prepared for “all-out war” to stop Biden from becoming president.

The Proud Boys were “lined up behind Donald Trump and willing to commit violence on his behalf,” prosecutor Conor Mulroe said in his closing argument.

The backbone of the government’s case was hundreds of messages exchanged by Proud Boys in the days leading up to Jan. 6 that show the far-right extremist group peddling Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and trading fears over what would happen when Biden took office.

As Proud Boys swarmed the Capitol, Tarrio cheered them on from afar, writing on social media: “Do what must be done.” In a Proud Boys encrypted group chat later that day someone asked what they should do next. Tarrio responded: “Do it again.”

“Make no mistake,” Tarrio wrote in another message. “We did this.”

Defense lawyers denied there was any plot to attack the Capitol or stop Congress’ certification of Biden’s win. A lawyer for Tarrio sought to push the blame onto Trump, arguing the former president incited the pro-Trump mob’s attack when he urged the crowd near the White House to “fight like hell.”

“It was Donald Trump’s words. It was his motivation. It was his anger that caused what occurred on January 6th in your beautiful and amazing city,” attorney Nayib Hassan said in his final appeal to jurors. “It was not Enrique Tarrio. They want to use Enrique Tarrio as a scapegoat for Donald J. Trump and those in power.”

Tarrio, a Miami resident, was charged and tried with four other Proud Boys: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. Nordean, of Auburn, Washington, was a Proud Boys chapter leader. Rehl led a group chapter in Philadelphia. Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Florida, was a self-described Proud Boys organizer. Pezzola was a group member from Rochester, New York.

The Justice Department hadn’t tried a seditious conspiracy case in a decade before a jury convicted another extremist group leader, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, of the Civil War-era charge last year.

Over the course of two Oath Keepers trials, Rhodes and five other members were convicted of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors said was a separate plot to forcibly halt the transfer of presidential power from Trump to Biden. Three defendants were acquitted of the sedition charge, but convicted of obstructing Congress’ certification of Biden’s electoral victory.

The Justice Department has yet to disclose how much prison time it will seek when the Oath Keepers are sentenced next month.

Daniel Ball, 38, of Homosassa, Florida, was arrested in Inverness, about 60 miles (96 kilometers) west of Orlando, according to court documents. He is charged with multiple felonies, including assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers with a deadly or dangerous weapon.

According to court documents, Ball joined with others in objecting to Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over then-President Donald Trump. A mob stormed the Capitol to try to stop Congress from certifying election results for Biden over Trump, a Republican, authorities have said. Five people died in the violence.

According to the criminal complaint, Ball entered the Capitol through the Senate wing door and pried a piece of a wooden shutter from a window in the Senate connecting corridor before exiting the building.

Ball later worked with others to violently push against fully uniformed police officers attempting to keep people out of the Capitol, prosecutors said. When that was unsuccessful, Ball moved back into the crowd and threw an explosive into the entranceway, investigators said.

An FBI explosives expert was unable to conclusively identify the precise dimensions, charge size or whether the device was improvised or commercially manufactured. But after reviewing various video angles, the expert concluded the device was capable of inflicting damage to surrounding property and causing serious injury.

Online court records didn’t list an attorney for Ball.

More than 1,000 people have been arrested in nearly all 50 states for alleged crimes related to the Capitol breach, officials said. More than 320 people have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.

The testimony is a significant development in the special counsel’s probe, as Pence could provide critical insights into Trump’s thinking in the days leading up to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. The former vice president published a memoir and Wall Street Journal opinion article detailing several of his interactions with Trump, but some details were left vague. Special counsel Jack Smith’s team is particularly interested in Trump’s efforts to try to block the certification of the election, NBC News previously reported.

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Pence’s appearance came amid an increased security presence at the federal courthouse in Washington on Thursday. NBC News spotted multiple black SUVs with tinted windows entering the parking garage in the morning. Two black SUVs entered the courthouse garage at around 9 a.m., an entrance that would allow witnesses to head up to the grand jury rooms on the third floor without being seen in the public areas of the courthouse.

The SUVs left the courthouse at about 4:30 p.m.

Read more at NBCNews.com.

Christian Matthew Manley, 27, of Fort Walton Beach, Florida, was sentenced Tuesday in federal court in the District of Columbia, according to court records. He pleaded guilty in November to assaulting, resisting and impeding law enforcement while using a dangerous weapon.

According to court documents, Manley joined with others in objecting to Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over then-President Donald Trump. A mob stormed the Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying election results for Biden over Trump, a Republican, authorities have said. Five people died in the violence.

According to the criminal complaint, Manley was captured on video outside the Capitol wearing a flak jacket and armed with bear spray, a collapsible police baton and handcuffs. Video shows Manley spraying bear spray at U.S. Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police Department officers as they defended an entrance from rioters.

Manley threw the empty bear spray container at officers, then sprayed a second cannister at officers before throwing it at them, prosecutors said. A short time later, Manley accepted a metal rod from another rioter and threw it at the officers, investigators said. They added that Manley also wedged his body against a wall in a tunnel and used force to push the security door against officers defending the Capitol.

Since Jan. 6, 2021, more than 1,000 people have been arrested in nearly all 50 states for alleged crimes related to the Capitol breach, officials said. More than 320 people have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.

Deliberations got underway in Washington’s federal court more than four months after jury selection began. The far-right extremist group’s members are accused of plotting to use force to keep then-President Donald Trump in the White House after he lost the 2020 election.

Defense attorneys say there was no conspiracy and no plan to attack the Capitol. They’ve sought to portray the Proud Boys as an unorganized drinking club whose members’ participation in the riot was a spontaneous act fueled by Trump’s election rage.

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Tarrio, a Miami resident, was tried alongside four other Proud Boys: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. They could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of seditious conspiracy, a Civil War-era charge that can be difficult to prove.

Tarrio is one of the top targets of the Justice Department’s investigation of the riot, which temporarily halted the certification of Biden’s election win.

The jury will begin deliberating Wednesday to decide whether the onetime Proud Boys national chairman and four co-defendants are guilty of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors allege was a desperate plot to keep President Donald Trump in the White House after the Republican lost the 2020 election.

Prosecutors in Washington have shown jurors hundreds of messages exchanged by Proud Boys in the days leading up to Jan. 6 that show the far-right extremist group peddling Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and trading fears over what would happen when President Joe Biden took office.

Defense attorneys say there was no conspiracy and no plan to attack the Capitol. They’ve sought to portray the Proud Boys as an unorganized drinking club whose members’ participation in the riot was a spontaneous act fueled by Trump’s election rage.

A lawyer for Tarrio sought to push the blame onto Trump in his closing argument, telling jurors on Tuesday that the Justice Department is making Tarrio a scapegoat for the former president.

Defense lawyer Nayib Hassan noted Tarrio wasn’t in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, having been banned from the capital after being arrested on allegations that he defaced a Black Lives Matter banner. Trump, Hassan argued, was the one to blame for extorting a crowd outside the White House to “ fight like hell.”

“It was Donald Trump’s words. It was his motivation. It was his anger that caused what occurred on January 6th in your beautiful and amazing city,” Hassan told jurors. “It was not Enrique Tarrio. They want to use Enrique Tarrio as a scapegoat for Donald J. Trump and those in power.”

Tarrio, a Miami resident, was tried alongside four other Proud Boys: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. They could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of seditious conspiracy, a Civil War-era charge that can be difficult to prove.

Tarrio is one of the top targets of the Justice Department’s investigation of the riot, which temporarily halted the certification of Biden’s election win.

Trump has denied inciting any violence on Jan. 6 and has argued that he was permitted by the First Amendment to challenge his loss to Biden. The former president is facing several civil lawsuits over the riot and a special counsel named by Attorney General Merrick Garland is also overseeing investigations into efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the election.

A prosecutor told jurors on Monday during the first day of closing arguments that the Proud Boys were ready for “all-out war” and viewed themselves as foot soldiers fighting for Trump as the Republican spread lies that Democrats stole the election from him.

“These defendants saw themselves as Donald Trump’s army, fighting to keep their preferred leader in power no matter what the law or the courts had to say about it,” said the prosecutor, Conor Mulroe.

Nordean, of Auburn, Washington, was a Proud Boys chapter president. Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Florida, was a self-described Proud Boys organizer. Rehl was president of a Proud Boys chapter in Philadelphia. Pezzola was a Proud Boys member from Rochester, New York.

Tarrio is accused of orchestrating an attack from afar even though he wasn’t in Washington that day. Police arrested him two days before the riot on charges that he burned a church’s Black Lives Matter banner during an earlier march in the city. A judge ordered Tarrio to leave Washington after his arrest.

Defense attorneys have argued that there is no evidence of a conspiracy or a plan for the Proud Boys to attack the Capitol. Tarrio “had no plan, no objective and no understanding of an objective,” his attorney said.

Pezzola testified that he never spoke to any of his co-defendants before they sat in the same courtroom after their arrests. Defense attorney Steven Metcalf said Pezzola never knew of any plan for Jan. 6 or joined in any conspiracy with the Proud Boys leaders.

“It’s not possible. It’s fairy dust. It doesn’t exist,” Metcalf said.

Mulroe, the prosecutor, told jurors that a conspiracy can be an unspoken and implicit “mutual understanding, reached with a wink and a nod.”

The foundation of the government’s case, which started with jury selection in December, is a trove of messages that Proud Boys leaders and members privately exchanged in encrypted chats — and publicly posted on social media — before, during and after the deadly Jan. 6 attack.

Another prosecutor, Nadia Moore, said the Proud Boys did more than just talk about their goal of keeping Trump in office. They marched to the Capitol and helped stop the certification of the Electoral College vote, she told jurors.

“These men aren’t here because of what they said. They’re here because of what they did,” Moore said Tuesday.

Norm Pattis, one of Biggs’ attorneys, described the Capitol riot as an “aberration” and told jurors that their verdict “means so much more than January 6th itself” because it will ”speak to the future.”

“Show the world with this verdict that the rule of law is alive and well in the United States,” Pattis said.

The Justice Department has already secured seditious conspiracy convictions against the founder and members of another far-right extremist group, the Oath Keepers. But this is the first major trial involving leaders of the far-right Proud Boys, a neo-fascist group of self-described “Western chauvinists” that remains a force in mainstream Republican circles.

The tune, “Justice for All,” is the Star-Spangled Banner, and it was sung by a group of defendants jailed over their alleged roles in the January 2021 insurrection. Recorded over a prison phone line, the national anthem sounds more like a dirge than celebration and is overlaid with Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Despite its low fidelity, “Justice for All” has garnered a lot of fans. Trump, a Republican, played it at a recent rally in Waco, Texas, as images of Capitol rioters flashed behind him on a big screen, and the $1.29 song last month briefly vaulted to No. 1 on iTunes, supplanting such recording artists as Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift.

Experts on extremism and propaganda say the song is another example of how Trump and his most ardent allies are trying to gloss over an avalanche of evidence proving the Capitol riot was anything but an act of patriotic resistance.

And it shows how such revisionists have dug deep into authoritarian playbooks that rely heavily on the use of national identity to sway public opinion. In this case, Trump and his allies are ironically relying on America’s most patriotic song in their efforts to whitewash an insurrection that contributed to five deaths and left more than 120 police officers injured, experts said.

“We should not be surprised that this propaganda is effective, but it is shocking to see this in this country,” said Federico Finchelstein, chair of the history department at the New School for Social Research in New York, an expert in authoritarian disinformation. “What they are demanding is that reality be put aside for the loyalty of the leader. And that leader in this case is Donald Trump.”

Law enforcement officials who battled rioters are aghast, calling the song a cynical effort to mislead Americans about the truth of what transpired during the Jan. 6 attack.

“Some of these people are trying to get a rise out of people, and some of these people are just using it to make a buck,” said Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, who received the Presidential Citizens Medal for his actions on Jan. 6. “People can believe whatever they want to believe, but this is real life.”

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Polls show Americans remain divided by ideology when it comes to their views of Jan. 6. A survey last year from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about half believe Trump’s involvement warranted criminal charges. A second poll revealed that only about 4 in 10 Republicans recall the attack as very violent or extremely violent.

Those doubts have been fueled by cable television hosts and far-right podcasters who have spent two years pushing outlandish theories to mitigate the horror of that deadly day.

Jan. 6 defendants, who issued tearful apologies and expressions of remorse in court, are now boasting of their participation or seeking to profit from it. Groups have sprung up to sell T-shirts emblazoned with “Free the Jan. 6 Protesters” and other merchandise that seeks to portray the rioters as principled demonstrators. Many say they are trying to raise money for the Jan. 6 defendants and their families.

That is the case with the groups behind “Justice for All,” or at least what they claim. Just as in other commercial ventures involving diehard Trump supporters and conspiracy theorists, it is difficult to pin down even basic facts about the song’s production and profits.

The song’s producers won’t say how much the song has raised, say how the proceeds will be split among Jan. 6 defendants or identify the vast majority of 20 or so participants on the recording. They have, however, been eager to tout the song’s success.

“Buh Bye Miley, Taylor, Rihanna, and all the rest who spent Millions trying for the coveted Number 1 spot,” one of the producers, Kash Patel, wrote on Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, on March 21. “Hello new Music Mogul @realDonaldTrump. We just took a flame thrower to the music industry.”

Claiming the top spot may provide bragging points, but conquering the iTunes chart isn’t the achievement it once was, as the number of people downloading music has plummeted given the popularity of streaming services like Spotify.

Aside from the $1.29 download, vinyl records of the song are sold online in different color schemes — prices range from $99.99 to $199.99.

Released in early March, the song is associated with The Justice for All Project, Inc., a nonprofit registered the same month with an address in Sarasota, Florida. Ed Henry, a former Fox News personality, is listed as a director of the organization and is credited with Patel as being a producer of “Justice for All.”

Another director of the nonprofit is Tom Homan, former head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under Trump. He is also the CEO of The America Project, a Florida group that has spent millions of dollars on efforts to undermine faith in U.S. elections. The group has sponsored conferences for election deniers, helped bankroll the partisan and flawed review of Arizona ballots following the 2020 election. It now has chapters in several states.

The America Project was founded in 2021 by Michael Flynn, a former Army general who briefly served as Trump’s national security advisor, and Patrick Byrne, the founder of the online retailer Overstock.com. In a series of text messages, Byrne confirmed to The Associated Press that The America Project helped create the song.

Further obscuring the song’s genesis: Its record label is listed as Mailman Media, a for-profit company that was only registered in Florida in February. It’s unclear which organization receives proceeds from the song. Mailman Media’s involvement was first reported by Forbes.

A spokeswoman for Patel and Henry declined to respond to questions about the song or the irony in using it in such a way. The Star-Spangled Banner was penned by Francis Scott Key after the bombardment of Ft. McHenry by the British in the War of 1812. Just weeks earlier, redcoats had burned the U.S. Capitol to the ground; that was the last time the building had been the scene of such a violent attack.

Others who are working to assist Capitol riot defendants and their families said they also have few insights into how the song will help their cause.

“None of the organizations that are working on this are aware” of how the money will be spent, or how it will help Jan. 6 defendants, said Trennis Evans, a Jan. 6 participant who operates a legal advocacy group for other defendants known as Condemned USA. Evans pleaded guilty last year to a federal misdemeanor for illegally entering the Capitol.

The 20 inmates singing in the J6 Prison choir make up a tiny fraction of the 1,000 people who have been charged with federal crimes related to the riot. More than 600 have pleaded guilty or been convicted, and more than 450 have been sentenced, with over half receiving prison terms ranging from seven days to 10 years.

Just one choir member has been identified: Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, now serving four years in prison for his actions during Jan. 6. Hale-Cusanelli is a family friend of Cynthia Hughes, a New Jersey woman who leads a separate organization raising money for Jan. 6 defendants. A spokeswoman for Hughes confirmed Hale-Cusanelli’s participation on the song but said Hughes was too busy to respond to questions.

Before he joined the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol, Hale-Cusanelli was an Army reservist who sometimes styled his mustache like Hitler and who alarmed coworkers with his comments about women and Jews.

Prosecutors alleged the 33-year-old New Jersey man urged other rioters to “advance”; video footage captured him yelling profanities at police and screaming “the revolution will be televised!”

On the witness stand during his trial, Hale-Cusanelli testified he didn’t realize that Congress met in the Capitol or that it was in session that day, to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory over Trump.

“I know this sounds idiotic, but I’m from New Jersey,” Hale-Cusanelli said. “In all my studies, I didn’t know there was an actual building that was called the ‘Capitol.’ It’s embarrassing and idiotic.”

The judge said Hale-Cusanelli’s claim was “highly dubious.” Prosecutors called it a lie. A jury convicted him of felony obstruction of an official proceeding and four related misdemeanors. An attorney for Hale-Cusanelli did not return messages seeking comment.

At his sentencing in September, like many Jan. 6 defendants, Hale-Cusanelli expressed regret for his role in the attack.

“My behavior that day was unacceptable, and I disgraced my uniform and I disgraced the country,” he told the judge before being sentenced to four years in federal prison.

“If there’s any kind of service that I can provide to rectify the damage done to the Capitol building or to injuries or anything done to the Capitol or Metro Police,” he told the judge, “I stand by to perform whatever that duty might be.”

He has become a performer, of sorts — on a song that seeks to recast himself as a patriot, not a rioter.

___

Associated Press writer Michelle R. Smith contributed to this report.

Nathan Donald Pelham of Greenville, who initially faced four misdemeanor charges tied to the insurrection, now faces an additional felony charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm following the April 12 incident, the complaint filed this week shows.

An FBI special agent wrote in a filing that he had called Pelham on April 12 and asked him to surrender in a few days. That evening, according to the agent, local authorities went to Pelham’s home after his father requested a welfare check. When the deputies arrived, Pelham fired several shots toward them, prosecutors said.

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The initial charges against Pelham included disorderly conduct, and parading, demonstrating or picketing at the Capitol. He appeared in at least one photo from the riot donning a hat with a logo associated with the Proud Boys, the FBI said.

Read more at NBCNews.com.

Christopher Alberts, of Maryland, was arrested with a weapon on the night of Jan. 6 after having spent several hours on the Capitol grounds.

He was wearing a gas mask and a protective vest and had a backpack containing ready-to-eat meals and other materials, including bungee cords.

After the verdict was read, Justice Department prosecutors sought to take Alberts into custody and keep him detained until his sentencing, which is scheduled for July 19. But Judge Christopher Cooper said that he would allow Alberts to remain on pretrial release until then.

For more on this story, go to NBC News.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth convicted Eric Munchel and his mother, Lisa Eisenhart, on all 10 counts in their indictment, including a charge that they conspired to obstruct Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory on Jan. 6, 2021. The judge is scheduled to sentence both of them Sept. 8.

Lamberth decided the case without a jury after a “stipulated bench trial,” an unusual legal proceeding in which defendants do not admit guilt to charges but agree with prosecutors that certain facts are true. At least three dozen Capitol riot defendants have resolved their cases that way — which allows defendants to preserve their right to an appeal — rather than opting for a traditional trial or pleading guilty.

A jury trial for the pair had been scheduled to start last week. Emails seeking comment were sent to their lawyers on Tuesday.

Munchel, 32, of Nashville, Tennessee, worked at a restaurant. Eisenhart, 59, of Woodstock, Georgia, has worked as a traveling nurse.

On Jan. 6, they attended then-President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally before joining the crowd that marched to the Capitol. Both of them were wearing tactical vests. Munchel had a stun gun holstered to his right hip.

After grabbing plastic handcuffs that they found inside the Capitol, Munchel and Eisenhart entered the gallery above the Senate chamber and stepped over a railing that separated portions of the gallery. Eisenhart chanted, “Treason! Treason!”

Munchel “gleefully” entered the Capitol during a riot while carrying a dangerous weapon, the stun gun, the judge said in a February 2021 ruling.

“By word and deed, Munchel has supported the violent overthrow of the United States government. He poses a clear danger to our republic,” Lamberth wrote.

In the riot’s aftermath, Eisenhart told a London newspaper that she would “rather die as a 57-year-old woman than live under oppression.”

“I’d rather die and would rather fight,” she added, according to the judge’s ruling.

Eisenhart also claimed that she took the plastic handcuffs to keep them away from “bad actors,” the judge noted.

More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the deadly Jan. 6 riot. Over 600 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted after trials decided by a jury or a judge. Over 450 of them have been sentenced, with more than half getting terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 10 years.

Federal prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of 15 years and eight months for Patrick McCaughey III, which would have been the longest sentence for a Capitol riot case by more than five years.

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden sentenced McCaughey to seven years and six months in prison followed by two years of supervised release. The judge described McCaughey, 25, as a “poster child of all that was dangerous and appalling about” the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.

“Your actions are some of the most egregious crimes that were committed on that dark day,” the judge told McCaughey.

McCaughey, of Ridgefield, Connecticut, expressed shame for joining the mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters who “violated” the Capitol.

“I’m sorry that I conducted myself less like a citizen and more like an animal that day,” he said.

McCaughey’s 90-month sentence matches the second longest prison sentence so far for a Capitol riot defendant. It’s the same length as the sentence that another judge handed down to Albuquerque Cosper Head, a Tennessee man who dragged Metropolitan Police Department Officer Michael Fanone into a crowd of rioters.

Also on Friday, a Finksburg, Maryland, man pleaded guilty to assaulting an Associated Press photographer and police officers in separate attacks outside the Capitol on Jan. 6. Rodney Milstreed is scheduled to be sentenced on July 20. Chief Judge James Boasberg told Milstreed, 56, that the estimated sentencing guidelines for his case recommend a term of imprisonment ranging from five years and three months to six years and six months.

The judge in McCaughey’s case convicted him of nine counts, including felony assault charges, after hearing trial testimony without a jury in September.

Nine people, including McCaughey, were charged together with joining one of the most brutal clashes at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Police and rioters were fighting for control of a tunnel entrance on the Lower West Terrace when MPD Officer Daniel Hodges came face to face with McCaughey, who used a stolen riot shield to pin Hodges to a metal doorframe.

“Go home!” McCaughey shouted at the officer.

Hodges, who testified at McCaughey’s trial and spoke at his sentencing hearing, said he thinks about the horrors of Jan. 6 every day.

“I do not foresee that changing anytime soon,” he told the judge, describing McCaughey as a “foot soldier” who was at “the vanguard of the assault.”

Hodges screamed out for help when another rioter grabbed the officer’s baton and struck him in the face with it.

“It was only then, over two minutes after the assault began, that McCaughey relented and pulled Officer Hodges’s face shield down over his eyes,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kimberly Paschall wrote in a court filing.

Hodges managed to retreat inside the Capitol building and was taken to a hospital. McCaughey struck a second officer with the shield before another officer sprayed him with a chemical irritant, backing him away.

“It is not an exaggeration to state the actions of these officers in thwarting the mob at the Lower West Terrace entrance potentially saved the lives of others, including members of Congress,” Paschall wrote.

The judge convicted McCaughey of obstructing an official proceeding, the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress for certifying Joe Biden’s presidential election victory over Trump.

Earlier this year, the judge sentenced four of McCaughey’s co-defendants to terms of imprisonment ranging from 14 months to five years. Paschall argued that McCaughey’s conduct was more “egregious and protracted” than the others’.

A probation officer’s calculation of the sentencing guidelines for McCaughey recommend a prison term ranging from nine years to 11 years and three months.

McCaughey’s attorneys requested a sentence of one year behind bars. They said McCaughey’s “reprehensible” actions were motivated by his “misunderstanding” about the 2020 presidential election. Trump, the Republican incumbent, falsely claimed that Democrats stole the election from him.

“There remain many grifters out there who remain free to continue propagating the ‘great lie’ that Trump won the election, Donald Trump being among the most prominent. Mr. McCaughey is not one of these individuals; he knows he was wrong,” his lawyers wrote.

McCaughey, a carpenter employed by his father’s construction company, drove about 300 miles (480 kilometers) from his Connecticut home to Washington, D.C., to attend Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6. After listening to speeches, McCaughey went to the Capitol and joined other rioters in confronting police officers guarding the West Plaza.

When the rioters broke through the police line, McCaughey climbed up the steps inside construction scaffolding and took a selfie atop the structure. Minutes later, he joined the mob in a coordinated “heave-ho” push against officers guarding the Lower West Terrace tunnel entrance.

More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the deadly Jan. 6 riot. Over 600 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted after trials decided by a jury or a judge. Over 450 of them have been sentenced, with more than half getting terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 10 years.

The 10-year prison sentence was for retired New York City police officer Thomas Webster, who was convicted by a jury of assaulting a Metropolitan Police Department officer with a metal flagpole.

Asked for his reaction to McCaughey’s sentence, Officer Hodges said it depends on what happens when his assailant is released from prison.

“We’ll see if he’s a changed man,” Hodges said outside the courtroom.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Capitol insurrection at https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege.

The sentence U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff imposed for Hatchet Speed in federal court in Alexandria was just five months less than the term sought by federal prosecutors and much longer than the one-year term sought by Speed’s lawyers.

Speed, 41, of McLean, is a military veteran who held top-secret clearances while working for a defense contractor.

The gun charges against him in Virginia are separate from charges brought in Washington, D.C., for obstructing an official proceeding, the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress for certifying the Electoral College vote. He will sentenced on those charges next month; sentencing guidelines in that case call for a term of nearly five to six years.

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Speed’s lawyers asked the judge not to be prejudiced against him because of his inflammatory views. In conversations with an FBI undercover employee in 2022, Speed expressed admiration not only for Hitler but also for Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.

In recorded conversations, Speed also made antisemitic comments and proposed targeting Jewish people with acts of violence. He also collected neo-Nazi memorabilia.

But Nachmanoff said Speed’s admiration for despicable historical figures and his views on advocating violence to achieve his objectives demonstrate the danger he poses to the public.

“The defendant’s statements of admiration for Adolf Hitler, Eric Rudolph and Ted Kaczynski … and his belief that such activities could be justified are all highly relevant,” Nachmanoff said.

Prosecutors said Speed, a member of the far-right Proud Boys group, believed the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. After Joe Biden took office, Speed began making preparations for what he believed was imminent civil war and started stockpiling weapons, including the three silencers that were the subject of his Virginia trial.

In Thursday’s closing statements, prosecutor Thomas Traxler said Speed studied the manifestos of Rudolph and Kaczynski to try to “come up with a better game plan than they had.”

Speed had claimed he was innocent because the devices he purchased were actually “solvent traps” used to collect excess fluid when you clean a gun.

The devices are indeed marketed as solvent traps, but their design is similar to that of a silencer. The only significant difference is that the “solvent traps” require drilling a hole in the end to turn them into functioning silencers.

Speed bought the devices, which are made of titanium and sell for hundreds of dollars, after he tried to buy silencers and faced significant delays. Speed said he did not believe he was required to register the devices as silencers with the government unless he drilled holes in them — something he never did.

Prosecutors, though, said the law governing silencers covers devices intended for use as a silencer, regardless of whether they are functional or sold under another name.

Speed’s first trial in Virginia ended with a hung jury and a mistrial, as jurors apparently struggled with the legal definition of a silencer and whether Speed was required to register them. He was convicted at a retrial, after one of the initial jurors reached out to prosecutors and explained what caused the jury’s confusion.

Traxler said the legal loophole that Speed thought he uncovered was “too cute by half” and urged a stiff sentence to discourage others from doing likewise.

Speed, who intends to appeal his conviction, did not speak at Thursd

Logan Barnhart joined one of the most brutal clashes between rioters and police on Jan. 6, 2021. He grabbed an officer by his neck and torso and dragged him into the crowd of rioters on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace. Minutes later, he returned to a police line and swung a flagpole at officers.

Barnhart, 42, of Holt, Michigan, said he didn’t recognize himself on a video, shown in court, that captured him assaulting the officer.

“The way I was acting seems so foreign to me,” he told U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras.

Contreras also sentenced Barnhart to three years of supervised release after his prison term and ordered him to pay a $3,688 fine and $2,000 in restitution. Contreras said anybody who “directly and brazenly” attacks police is inherently dangerous to the public.

“He ran to the fight,” the judge said.

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Earlier on Thursday, a former Capitol police officer avoided a prison sentence for trying to help a Virginia fisherman avoid criminal charges for storming the building his law enforcement colleagues defended on Jan. 6. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced Michael Angelo Riley to two years of probation and four months of home detention.

Riley, a 25-year police veteran, was on duty when a mob attacked the Capitol, injuring more than 100 officers. Riley’s voice cracked as he lamented how his “awful judgment” cost him his career, tarnished his reputation, ended friendships in the department and traumatized his family.

“The amount of regret and remorse I have over this situation is unimaginable,” Riley told the judge.

In Barnhart’s case, federal prosecutors had recommended a prison term of five years and three months. Barnhart has been on home detention while awaiting his sentencing. The judge ordered him to remain on home detention until he reports to prison at a date to be determined.

Barnhart has worked as a pipelayer and heavy machine operator for construction companies. NBC News reported that Barnhart has modeled for covers of romance novels, including “Stepbrother UnSEALed: A Bad Boy Military Romance.” Internet sleuths using facial recognition technology found photographs of Barnhart from his modeling career, NBC reported.

Defense attorney Michelle Peterson said Barnhart drove alone to Washington, D.C., to attend the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6 because he wanted to support then-President Donald Trump and believed the baseless claims that Democrats stole the election from the Republican incumbent.

“Now two years away from the chaos of that day, he is deeply remorseful and cannot understand how he acted so foolishly,” Peterson wrote.

Barnhart was charged with several other riot defendants in the same indictment.

Barnhart and co-defendants Jack Whitton and Jeffrey Sabol dragged a Metropolitan Police Department officer away from a police line, down stairs and into the crowd, where co-defendants Peter Stager and Mason Joel Courson beat the officer with a flagpole and a baton, according to prosecutors.

Barnhart was arrested in August 2021 and pleaded guilty in September 2022 to assaulting the officer with a dangerous weapon.

“He threw that officer to the wolves,” prosecutor Benet Kearney said.

Barnhart wrote an apology letter addressed to the officer. He said he was ashamed of his behavior on Jan. 6.

“I hope one day we can all put aside our petty differences that seem to be tearing our beautiful country apart,” Barnhart wrote.

In the case against Riley, the former Capitol police officer, prosecutors recommended a prison sentence of two years and three months.

The judge said Riley’s actions were “shocking conduct for any member of law enforcement.”

“You knew exactly how bad January 6th was,” she added. Jackson also ordered him to pay a $10,000 fine and perform 150 hours of community service.

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On Jan. 6, 2021, Riley investigated a report of an explosive device at Republican National Committee headquarters and helped an injured officer. The following day, he posted a Facebook message calling for federal charges against anybody who assaulted police, damaged property or breached the Capitol.

“If we don’t send a message it will surely happen again,” he wrote.

Less than two hours later, Riley read a Facebook post by Jacob Hiles, a fisherman he knew from YouTube videos. Hiles wrote about his own participation in the riot and posted a video of rioters clashing with police.

Riley, 51, of Maryland, privately messaged Hiles and identified himself as a Capitol police officer who agreed with his “political stance.”

“Take down the part about being in the building they are currently investigating and everyone who was in the building is going to be charged. Just looking out!” Riley wrote.

They continued to exchange friendly messages until Hiles told Riley that the FBI was “very curious” that they had been communicating.

“They took my phone and downloaded everything,” Hiles wrote.

Riley immediately deleted all of their private messages, according to prosecutors.

Riley was charged with two counts of obstruction of justice. In October 2022, a jury convicted him of one count but deadlocked on the second.

Riley described his actions as “stupid and reckless” but said he didn’t think he was breaking the law.

“It certainly doesn’t excuse my lapse in judgment,” he said.

Hiles pleaded guilty in September 2021 to a misdemeanor count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. Jackson sentenced him in December 2021 to two years of probation and ordered him to complete 60 hours of community service.

More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Jan. 6 riot. Over 600 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted after trials decided by a jury or judge. Over 450 of them have been sentenced, with over half getting terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 10 years.

Michael Angelo Riley, a 25-year police veteran, was on duty when a mob attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, injuring more than 100 officers. Riley’s voice cracked as he lamented how his “awful judgment” cost him his career, tarnished his reputation, ended friendships in the department and traumatized his family.

“The amount of regret and remorse I have over this situation in unimaginable,” Riley told U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson before she sentenced him.

Before the hearing, prosecutors recommended a prison sentence of two years and three months for Riley. Jackson agreed to spare him a term of imprisonment.

The judge said Riley’s actions were “shocking conduct for any member of law enforcement.”

“You knew exactly how bad January 6th was,” she added. Jackson also ordered him to pay a $10,000 fine and perform 150 hours of community service.

On Jan. 6, 2021, Riley investigated a report of an explosive device at Republican National Committee headquarters and helped an injured officer. The following day, he posted a Facebook message calling for federal charges against anybody who assaulted police, damaged property or breached the Capitol.

“If we don’t send a message it will surely happen again,” he wrote.

Less than two hours later, Riley read a Facebook post by Jacob Hiles, a fisherman he knew from YouTube videos. Hiles wrote about his own participation in the riot and posted a video of rioters clashing with police.

Riley, 51, of Maryland, privately messaged Hiles and identified himself as a Capitol police officer who agreed with his “political stance.”

“Take down the part about being in the building they are currently investigating and everyone who was in the building is going to be charged. Just looking out!” Riley wrote.

They continued to exchange friendly messages until Hiles told Riley that the FBI was “very curious” that they had been communicating.

“They took my phone and downloaded everything,” Hiles wrote.

Riley immediately deleted all of their private messages, according to prosecutors.

Riley was charged with two counts of obstruction of justice. In October 2022, a jury convicted him of one count but deadlocked on the second.

Riley described his actions as “stupid and reckless” but said he didn’t think he was breaking the law.

“It certainly doesn’t excuse my lapse in judgment,” he said.

Riley “fully understood the horrors of” the Jan. 6 attack, Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Howland said in a court filing.

“And yet, when the time came for (Riley) to hold the line, he sided with a known rioter, a person he had never met or spoken to, because of the rioter’s political views and because he happened to be a good fisherman,” Howland wrote.

Riley’s lawyers said he already has paid a steep price for contacting Hiles: He has lost his job and his K-9 partner, a dog named Toby.

“If he could do it all over again, he never would have contacted him,” they wrote.

Hiles pleaded guilty in September 2021 to a misdemeanor count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. Jackson sentenced him in December 2021 to two years of probation and ordered him to complete 60 hours of community service.

More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Jan. 6 riot. Over 600 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted after trials decided by a jury or judge. Over 450 of them have been sentenced, with over half getting terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 10 years.

More than 100 police officers were injured at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Also on Thursday, a different judge is scheduled to sentence a Michigan man who pleaded guilty to assaulting a police officer at the Capitol during one of the most brutal clashes between rioters and law enforcement.

Logan Barnhart, a pipelayer who modeled for covers of romance novels, grabbed an officer by his neck and torso and dragged him into the crowd of rioters on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace. Minutes later, Barnhart returned to a police line and struck other officers with a flagpole.

Zachary Rehl, who was a chapter leader from Philadelphia, became the first defendant in the high-stakes trial of five Proud Boys to testify. It’s a potentially risky move in one of the most serious cases to emerge from the riot.

“There was no objective on Jan. 6. I even asked the night before in the chat,” Rehl, 37, testified, referring to the chat the Proud Boys used to communicate ahead of the riot. “There were no objectives. We were just going to walk around the city. I said over and over again, I want the legal process to play out. That’s the process our country was founded on.”

Rehl is on trial alongside with former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and three others accused of plotting to forcibly stop the transfer of power from President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden. They face up to 20 years behind bars if convicted of seditious conspiracy.

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One other defendant, Dominic Pezzola of Rochester, New York, is also expected testify before the long-running trial comes to a close as soon as next week.

Tarrio is not expected to take the stand. Nor is Ethan Nordean of Auburn, Washington, or self-described Proud Boys organizer Joseph Biggs of Ormond Beach, Florida.

Rehl marched with other Proud Boys on Jan. 6 and entered the Capitol through a door on the west side of the building, but he testified he waited until he knew all members of Congress were out before he went inside. He said no one told him to attack the Capitol, hurt anyone or damage anything, and he didn’t do any of those things.

He said he joined the group in 2018 to build his network as he tried to launch a business, though he acknowledged it likely had the opposite effect. He framed his membership in the group as more of a social way to drink with friends, and referred to Trump as a businessman he had respected since childhood but also a “loudmouth.”

Rehl’s decision to testify could open him up to grilling from prosecutors when the case resumes Wednesday.

He was a member of a group Tarrio created for “national rally planning” called the Ministry of Self Defense. He warned prospective members about a week before Jan. 6 that it was going to be a “completely different operation” and wouldn’t be a “night march” for “flexing” their arms, prosecutors said in charging documents.

His social-media messages cited by prosecutors included one from on Nov. 27, 2020, that said, “Hopefully the firing squads are for the traitors that are trying to steal the election from the American people.”

The evening of Jan. 6, in response to his mother asking if he was OK, Rehl responded that he was, and said it “seems like our raid of the capital set off a chain reaction of events throughout the country. i’m so (expletive) proud.”

Former Proud Boys who have testified for the prosecution after pleading guilty to criminal charges have said that while they weren’t aware of a detailed plan for storming the Capitol, they shared a common goal to keep Trump in office.

Rehl is not the first Jan. 6 defendant facing seditious conspiracy charges to take the witness stand. In the first trial of members and associates of another far-right extremist group, the Oath Keepers, three out of five defendants testified — with mixed results.

Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes testified that he had no idea they were going to join the mob and storm the Capitol and said he was upset after he found out that some members did. Despite his testimony, he was convicted of seditious conspiracy and other felonies, and is expected to be sentenced next month.

But two other Oath Keepers defendants who took the witness stand were cleared of the sedition charge. Jurors, however, found all five defendants guilty of obstruction of an official proceeding: Congress’ certification of Biden’s electoral victory.

Robert Sanford, wearing prison orange, told Senior Judge Paul L. Friedman that he was embarrassed, ashamed and disgusted by his behavior on Jan. 6. Sanford, who worked as a firefighter in Chester, Pennsylvania, was arrested in mid-Jan. 2021, and has already spent roughly eight months in custody, which will be shaved off his 52-month sentence.

He will also serve three years of supervised release.

“Mob mentality is real, and I got caught up in it,” Sanford said, apologizing to the officers he assaulted and to first responders who saw his conduct that day, saying he’d been proud of the work he’d done as a firefighter.

For more on this story, go to NBC News

Closing arguments could be as early as this week before jurors decide whether to convict Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and four lieutenants of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors say was a plot to forcibly stop the transfer of presidential power from Republican Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden after the 2020 election.

In a trial that has lasted over twice as long as expected, little new information has emerged about the Jan. 6 attack that halted Congress’ certification of Biden’s victory or the far-right extremist group’s role in the Capitol riot. But a guilty verdict against Tarrio, who wasn’t even in Washington, D.C., when the riot erupted, would affirm that those accused of planning and inciting the violence could be held responsible even if they didn’t join in it.

The case is nearing a close as a new problem may be on the horizon for the Proud Boys, a neofacist group known for brawling and street fights with left-wing activists and disrupting storytelling sessions by drag performers and other LGBTQ events around the country.

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The group, Tarrio and two others on trial are also facing a separate, multimillion-dollar lawsuit. A judge is poised to decide how much they should have to pay a historic Black church in Washington for Proud Boys destroying a Black Lives Matter sign during a weekend of pro-Trump rallies in December 2020 that erupted into violence. Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church is seeking up to $22 million in punitive damages, saying it was part of an effort to intimidate those who fight for racial justice.

Tarrio wasn’t in Washington on Jan. 6 because he had been arrested two days earlier for his role in burning another Black Lives Matter banner torn down from a different Washington church, Asbury United Methodist. Tarrio was ordered to stay out of the city after his arrest.

The seditious conspiracy case in Washington’s federal court, which began with opening statements in January, has been slowed by bickering between the judge and defense attorneys, repeated requests for a mistrial, lengthy cross-examinations of witnesses and other legal maneuvers that often kept jurors waiting in the wings instead of hearing courtroom testimony.

On trial with Tarrio are Proud Boys chapter leaders Ethan Nordean, of Auburn, Washington; and Zachary Rehl, of Philadelphia; self-described Proud Boys organizer Joseph Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Florida; and Dominic Pezzola, a Proud Boys member from Rochester, New York.

It is unclear if any of them will testify before the defense rests and jurors hear attorneys’ closing arguments.

The backbone of the government’s case is a trove of messages that Proud Boys leaders privately exchanged on the Telegram platform before, during and after the Capitol riot. Their online rhetoric became increasingly angry with each failure by Trump’s lawyers to challenge election results in court.

“If Biden steals this election, (the Proud Boys) will be political prisoners,” Tarrio posted in Nov. 16, 2020. “We won’t go quietly … I promise.”

As the mob attacked Capitol, Tarrio posted on social media, “Don’t (expletive) leave.”

When a Proud Boys member asked, “Are we a militia yet?” Tarrio responded with one word — “Yep” — in a voice note.

“Make no mistake,” Tarrio wrote. “We did this.”

Defense attorneys have argued that there is no evidence of a plan for the Proud Boys to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6.

They have stressed that Proud Boys had FBI informants in their ranks who didn’t raise any red flags about the group before Jan. 6. In an effort to show jurors that Tarrio was trying to avoid violence, they also showed how Tarrio frequently communicated with an officer assigned to monitor extremist groups’ activity in Washington and advised the officer of the group’s plans in the weeks before Jan. 6.

Several Oath Keepers leaders and members who previously stood trial on seditious conspiracy charges similarly argued that the riot was a spontaneous outpouring of election-fueled rage, not the result of a premediated plan. While prosecutors said the Capitol attack was only a means to an end in the Oath Keepers’ larger plot to stop the transfer of power, defense attorneys repeatedly raised the lack of evidence that the Oath Keepers had an explicit plan to storm the Capitol.

In the end, prosecutors managed to secure seditious conspiracy convictions at trials against Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and five other members, but three others were acquitted of the charge. Those others, however, were convicted of other serious felonies. Sentencings for Rhodes and other Oath Keepers are scheduled for next month.

In the Oath Keepers case, prosecutors could point to a cache of guns stashed at a Virginia hotel as evidence they planned to use force to stop the transfer of power, a key element of the crime.

Among the Proud Boys defendants, only Pezzola is accused of engaging in violence or destruction after being filmed smashing in a Capitol window with a riot shield.

The prosecutors in the Proud Boys case have instead argued that Tarrio and the others handpicked and mobilized a loyal group of foot soldiers — or “tools” — to supply the force necessary to carry out their plot.

Defense attorneys say that’s an unusual, flawed legal concept, and their messages were taken out of context. They’ve also painted Tarrio in particular as a scapegoat for the riot and an easier person to blame than Trump, whose spoke to a crowd of supporters just before they marched on the Capitol. Pezzola’s lawyers even tried to subpoena Trump, but the effort seemed to go nowhere.

Even without his testimony, Trump could factor into the jury’s verdict. Jurors saw a video of the 2020 presidential debate at which Trump told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” a moment that led to an explosion of attention and membership requests.

“These men did not stand back. They did not stand by. Instead, they mobilized,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason McCullough told jurors.

Key prosecution witnesses included two former Proud Boys members who cooperated with the government in hopes of getting lighter sentences. One of them, Matthew Greene, testified that Proud Boys members were expecting a “civil war” after the 2020 election. The other, Jeremy Bertino, testified that the Proud Boys saw themselves as “the tip of the spear.”

Bertino is the only Proud Boy who has pleaded guilty to a seditious conspiracy charge. Both said they didn’t know of a specific plan to storm the Capitol, though Bertino said they wanted to keep Biden from taking office. Greene said group leaders celebrated the attack on Jan. 6 but didn’t explicitly encourage members to use force.

The trial was briefly disrupted when prosecutors told defense attorneys that a woman expected to testify for Tarrio’s defense had secretly worked as an FBI informant after the Jan. 6 attack. Defense attorneys were alarmed because the woman had been in touch with the defense team, but prosecutors said the informant was never told to gather information about the defendants or their lawyers. Tarrio’s lawyers ultimately decided not to call her as a witness.

In the civil case brought by the Metropolitan AME, the judge is expected on Tuesday to hear final arguments from the church. The case is against the Proud Boys as an entity as well as Tarrio, Biggs, Nordean, Bertino and another member. The judge has already said they will be liable by default because the group failed to respond to the lawsuit or participate in the case. The only question remains is how much, if anything, they will have to pay.

Samuel Montoya, 37, was employed as a video editor for Infowars when he stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and captured footage of a police officer fatally shooting a rioter, Ashli Babbitt.

Before a judge announced his sentence, Montoya called himself “a member of the media” and said he regrets his “approach to filming and reporting on the events that day.”

“Nothing like what happened at the Capitol that day should ever take place again,” Montoya said. “I truly hope my apology offers a bit of closure to my fellow countrymen as we recover and heal together.”

U.S. District Judge John Bates said Montoya “doesn’t get a free pass … just because he considered himself a journalist.”

“He was more than just a reporter,” the judge said before sentencing Montoya. “He was not just an observer. He was a participant.”

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Montoya pleaded guilty in November to one count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in prison.

Prosecutors recommended sentencing Montoya to 45 days of imprisonment. Bates instead sentenced Montoya to 3 years of probation, including 120 days of home detention and 60 hours of community service, and ordered him to pay a $1,500 fine plus $500 in restitution. The judge said it was a “close call” in deciding to spare him from incarceration.

A video that Montoya recorded for Infowars showed him celebrating the attack and joining other rioters in breaking through a line of police officers in the Capitol’s Crypt.

“We’re storming!” he said.

Montoya invoked his participation in the riot when he mounted an unsuccessful congressional campaign in the 35th district of Texas last year. His campaign website was capitolsam.com and included a section called “Arrest and Political Persecution.”

Two days after the riot, Montoya appeared on an Infowars show hosted by Owen Shroyer and described the scene of Babbitt’s shooting.

The officer shot Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran from San Diego, as she climbed through a broken door leading into the House Speaker’s lobby. The officer was cleared of wrongdoing by both federal prosecutors and Capitol police.

Montoya was arrested in April 2021. Shroyer also was arrested on Capitol riot-related charges. The case against Shroyer hasn’t been resolved.

Infowars founder and host Alex Jones claimed he told Montoya to stay in Texas to work on the site’s broadcasts while Jones and others went to Washington, D.C., for the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, according to prosecutors.

“Jones said that Montoya went to D.C. on his own, and that Jones had instructed his staff not to go inside the U.S. Capitol,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexis Loeb wrote in a court filing.

Jones used Infowars to promote former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud. Jones hasn’t been charged with any Jan. 6-related crimes.

In October, a Connecticut jury ordered Jones and his company, Free Speech System, to pay nearly $1 billion in damages to compensate families of children and educators killed in the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The families said Jones broadcast lies about the school shooting that subjected them to harassment and threats.

Jones’ company hired Montoya in 2018. He was laid off in November after the company filed for bankruptcy, according to his attorney.

Approximately 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Jan. 6 riot. More than 600 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted after trials decided by a jury or judge. Roughly 450 have been sentenced, with over half getting terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 10 years.

The verdict was announced the same day the former president appeared in court in Manhattan to be arraigned on charges related to hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Ed Badalian was arrested in November 2021 after he was indicted for conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting, and tampering with documents or proceedings. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, obstruction of an official proceeding, and a misdemeanor count.

He was found not guilty of a tampering count because the judge found that a government witness, a fellow Jan. 6 rioter, was a “hot mess” on the stand.

“Our duly elected leader has called his marching orders, we gotta show up,” Badalian wrote in the “Patriots 45 MAGA Gang” chat on Dec. 21. 

For more on this story, go to NBC News.

The FBI arrested David Elizalde on Sunday in Arlington, Virginia, on misdemeanor charges, including disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, according to a court filing.

Elizalde told the FBI that he was stationed on the USS Harry S. Truman when he drove alone from Norfolk, Virginia, to Washington, D.C., to attend the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021. Then-President Donald Trump addressed a crowd of supporters before the mob attacked the Capitol, disrupting the congressional certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.

Videos show a man matching Elizalde’s description holding a flag when he entered the Capitol through the Senate wing doors and leaving the building about three minutes later through the same doors. Elizalde said he heeded a police officer’s command to leave the building but lingered outside “to observe the scene for a little while because he knew something historic was happening,” the FBI said.

Elizalde, an aviation structural mechanic, was an active-duty sailor on the day of the Capitol riot, according to a Navy Office of Information spokesperson. The Texas resident enlisted in June 2007, and also has served on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier, according to Navy records.

Federal agents interviewed Elizalde at a Naval Criminal Investigative Service office on Naval Station Rota, in Rota, Spain, in December 2021. He had reported for duty in Spain on Jan. 22, 2021, the Navy records say.

The complaint against Elizalde was filed under seal in February and made public on Monday.

Online court records didn’t immediately name a lawyer representing Elizalde.

Approximately 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Jan. 6 riot. Many of them are military veterans, but only a few were on active duty at the time of the Capitol attack.

A Marine Corps officer was the first active-duty service member to be charged in the riot. Maj. Christopher Warnagiris, of Woodbridge, Virginia, was arrested in May 2021 and charged with assaulting an officer at the Capitol. Three other active-duty Marines were charged in January with participating in the riot.

In delivering the sentence, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson called Riley Williams’ actions “utterly reprehensible.”

Williams, federal prosecutors argued at trial in November, “led an army” up a set of stairs toward Pelosi’s office and was present when rioters swiped the laptop that the California Democrat kept in her conference room and used for “all her Zoom meetings.”

For more on this story, go to NBC News.

Geoffrey Sills of Mechanicsville, Virginia, was convicted of assault with a dangerous weapon, obstruction of Congress and robbery for his role in the violence at the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace tunnel, where police were beaten and crushed as as they tried to beat back the angry mob of President Donald Trump supporters.

The 31-year-old has already served a year and a half behind bars since his June 2021 arrest.

In a separate case on Tuesday, a judge declared a mistrial after jurors failed to reach an agreement on whether a man described as the Oath Keepers “operations leader” for Jan. 6 was guilty of obstruction. Michael Greene was acquitted of all other felony charges on Monday, but convicted of a misdemeanor offense. Greene is the only defendant in three trials involving more than a dozen members and associates of the far-right extremist group to not be convicted of a felony charge.

Sills — who arrived at the Capitol with a gas mask and goggles — threw several pole-like objects at police, stole a police baton from an officer and hit at least two officers with it, according to prosecutors. He also pointed a strobe light at a line of officers in the tunnel.

Sills posted videos of his actions and others on social media that day before deleting his account, prosecutors say. In one post — showing officers in riot gear — Sills wrote: “Visited the Capitol today.” In another post depicting rioters flooding into the the tunnel, he wrote: “Took a tour.”

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden found Sills guilty in August after a stipulated bench trial — an unusual legal proceeding in which defendants do not admit guilt to charges but agree with the government that certain facts are true.

Prosecutors had been seeking nine years behind bars, writing in court papers that Sills has “expressed little remorse and contrition.” Prosecutors argued that his social media posts “were those of a man proud of his actions.”

Sills’ attorney wrote in court papers that his client didn’t come to Washington on Jan. 6 with any intention to commit violence and had a gas mask and tactical gear only “because he feared a terrorist attack.”

“He did not arrive that day planning or expecting to wreak violence. There is no evidence that he injured anyone. He went because his President asked him to. Once there, he stepped into a maelstrom not of his making,” attorney John Kiyonaga wrote. An email seeking comment was sent to Kiyonaga after sentencing.

Sills is among roughly 1,000 people who have been charged with federal crimes in the riot that left dozens of police officers injured. More than 300 people have been charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers, including more than 100 who have been charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury.

More than half the Jan. 6 defendants have pleaded guilty, including more than 130 who have pleaded guilty to felony crimes. Of the 400 who have been sentenced, more than half have gotten terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 10 years, according to an Associated Press tally.

In the Oath Keepers case, jurors on Monday found four defendants guilty of conspiracy and obstruction: Sandra Parker, of Morrow, Ohio, Laura Steele, of Thomasville, North Carolina, William Isaacs, of Kissimmee, Florida, and Connie Meggs, of Dunnellon, Florida.

Sandra Parker’s husband, Bennie Parker, was acquitted Monday of obstruction as well as one conspiracy charge, and Greene was acquitted of two conspiracy charges. The judge instructed jurors to keep deliberating after they said they couldn’t reach a verdict on another conspiracy charge for Bennie Parker and the obstruction charge for Greene.

On Tuesday, the jury returned a guilty verdict for Bennie Parker on the other conspiracy charge, but deadlocked on the obstruction charge for Greene.

Greene, of Indianapolis, Indiana, said he wasn’t a dues-paying member of the Oath Keepers but worked essentially as a contractor, providing security services. He took the witness stand during the seditious conspiracy trial of Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and told jurors that Rhodes asked him to come to Washington to help with security operations for events around the Capitol before the riot. Greene didn’t go inside the Capitol and told jurors he never heard anyone discussing plans to do so.

Greene’s attorney, William Shipley, said Tuesday that “the government’s case was a farce,” adding that “it made no sense and the jury saw it for what it was.”

Sandra Parker, Laura Steele, Connie Meggs and William Isaacs were found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. The jury found Michael Greene, another member of the Oath Keepers, not guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, but was still debating whether he was guilty of aiding or abetting the obstruction of an official proceeding.

Bennie Parker was found not guilty of aiding or abetting, but the jury was still deliberating the conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding charge.

For more on this story, go to NBC News.

Larry Brock joined other rioters on the Senate floor only minutes after then-Vice President Mike Pence, senators and their staff evacuated the chamber to escape the mob attacking the building on Jan. 6, 2021.

U.S. District Judge John Bates also sentenced Brock to two years of supervised release after his prison term and ordered him to perform 100 hours of community service. Brock, who declined to speak in court before the judge imposed his sentence, remains free until he must report to prison at a date to be determined.

Prosecutors had recommended a sentence of five years in prison followed by three years of supervised release.

Bates convicted Brock in November after a trial without a jury. The judge said Brock expressed “very troubling” and violent rhetoric before the Jan. 6 riot. The judge read aloud several of Brock’s social media postings calling it “really pretty astounding” that a former high-ranking military officer expressed those words.

“That’s chilling stuff, and it does reflect a purpose to stop the certification of the election,” Bates said.

Brock believed baseless conspiracy theories that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Republican incumbent Donald Trump, prosecutors said.

“When we get to the bottom of this conspiracy we need to execute the traitors that are trying to steal the election, and that includes the leaders of the media and social media aiding and abetting the coup plotters,” Brock wrote in a Nov. 9. 2020, post on Facebook.

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In a Facebook message to another user on Christmas Eve, Brock outlined what he called a “plan of action if Congress fails to act” on Jan. 6. One of the “main tasks” in his plan was to “seize all Democratic politicians and Biden key staff and select Republicans.”

“Begin interrogations using measures we used on al-Qaida to gain evidence on the coup,” he wrote.

Brock, a Texas native who lived in the Dallas area, flew combat missions in Afghanistan before retiring from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel.

His “plan of action” also called for a “general pardon for all crimes up to and including murder of those restoring the Constitution and putting down the Democratic Insurrection.”

“Do not kill LEO unless necessary,” he wrote, apparently referring to law enforcement officers.

Brock didn’t engage in any violence on Jan. 6, but prosecutors said his behavior was “disturbingly premediated.”

“Had the Senate Gallery not been emptied minutes before, Brock could have come face-to-face with the politicians he had fantasized about seizing and interrogating,” they wrote in a court filing.

Bates convicted Brock of all six counts in his indictment, including obstruction of an official proceeding, the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress for certifying President Joe Biden’s electoral victory, The obstruction charge is a felony; the other five counts are misdemeanors.

Defense attorney Charles Burnham said it is “inconceivable that (Brock) was motivated by anything other than genuine concern for democracy.”

“If Mr. Brock was sincerely motivated by high ideals, it significantly reduces his culpability even if the Court should privately disagree with his view,” Burnham wrote in a court filing.

Brock attended the “Stop the Steal” rally where Trump addressed a crowd of supporters on Jan. 6. He was wearing a helmet and tactical vest when he joined the mob that attacked the Capitol. He entered the building through Senate wing doors roughly 12 minutes after other rioters initially breached them.

On the floor near the East Rotunda stairs, Brock picked up a discarded pair of zip-tie handcuffs. He held the “flex-cuffs” in his right hand in the Senate gallery. On the Senate floor, he examined paperwork on senators’ desks.

“This was consistent with Brock’s stated overall mission on January 6, which was intelligence gathering to stop the certification and the transfer of power,” prosecutors wrote.

Brock graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1989. He was on active duty until 1998 and served in the reserves until 2014.

In a letter to the judge, a retired Air Force major general praised Brock’s military service. The major general, whose name was redacted from public court filings, said Brock risked his life to protect U.S. forces from a Taliban attack, flying below mountain peaks into a valley “saturated with enemy forces.”

“The result thwarted enemy advances on U.S. personnel, saved U.S. lives and defused an ever-escalating situation for the forces at that remote base in Afghanistan,” the major general wrote.

Brock was employed as a commercial airline pilot on Jan. 6. His lawyer said the Federal Aviation Administration revoked Brock’s licenses after his January 2021 arrest.

Approximately 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Jan. 6 riot. More than 400 of them have been sentenced, with over half getting terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 10 years.

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Elliot Resnick, 39, was chief editor of The Jewish Press when he joined the crowd of Donald Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit.

Videos show Resnick grabbing and holding the arm of a Capitol police sergeant who was spraying a chemical irritant to prevent rioters from entering the building, the affidavit says. Another officer tried to remove Resnick’s hand from the sergeant’s arm, the agent wrote.

The FBI arrested Resnick in New York City on charges including civil disorder and assault of or interference with law enforcement. Clay Kaminsky, an attorney representing Resnick in New York, declined to comment on the charges.

The Jewish Press, based in Brooklyn, bills itself as the largest independent weekly Jewish newspaper in the U.S. A statement on its website says it is “known for its editorial feistiness” and “was politically incorrect long before the phrase was coined.”

Politico reported in April 2021 that video showed Resnick inside the Capitol on Jan. 6. Resnick later wrote an article defending the Capitol riot without acknowledging his presence in the building that day, Politico’s report noted.

At the time, The Jewish Press publisher Naomi Mauer told Politico that the newspaper believed Resnick “acted within the law.” A statement from The Jewish Press editorial board confirmed Resnick was in the Capitol on Jan. 6 and had been “covering the rally and the rest of the day’s terrible events” for the newspaper.

The editorial board wrote, “The Jewish Press does not see why Elliot’s personal views on former President Trump should make him any different from the dozens of other journalists covering the events, including many inside the Capitol building during the riots.”

Then-President Trump addressed a crowd of his supporters at the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6. The mob that stormed the Capitol disrupted a joint session of Congress that was certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

Before the riot, Resnick posted social media messages echoing Trump’s baseless claims that Democrats stole the election from him, according to posts cited by the FBI affidavit.

Resnick had been a reporter and editor at The Jewish Press since 2006. He left the newspaper in May 2021, before the FBI says it began investigating him.

The Jewish Press staff didn’t immediately respond to email and telephone messages seeking comment on Resnick’s arrest.

Approximately 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot. Several riot defendants have claimed that they were acting as journalists when they joined the mob in entering the Capitol, but prosecutors and judges have routinely rejected those claims.

For the past two years, the FBI has been fanning out across the county to arrest Capitol riot suspects. The cases are often based on tips that they received in the first months after the riot.

The FBI agent’s account of Resnick’s actions on Jan. 6 portray him as an active participant in the riot.

Video showed Resnick repeatedly gesturing for others to come up stairs toward the Capitol after rioters broke through a line of police officers, the agent’s affidavit says.

Renick was one of the first rioters to enter the Capitol through the East Rotunda doors, according to the FBI. After entering the building, Resnick joined others in attempting to push open a door that a police officer was trying to keep closed, the FBI said. Another officer who tried to stop Renick was thrown to the ground by a different rioter.

Resnick grabbed and pulled other rioters into the Capitol after he failed to open the door, according to the affidavit. It says he spent roughly 50 minutes inside the Capitol before leaving.

In fact, he was a Trump supporter who had already been arrested and charged. On Monday morning, he pleaded guilty.

Edward Rodriguez, 28, of Brooklyn, New York, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers, inflicting bodily injury. Online sleuths, who identified Rodriguez in early 2021, had nicknamed him “Suit Macer,” because he was wearing a suit and “maced” a line of officers.

For more on this story, go to NBC News

Larry Fife Giberson, 21, of Manahawkin, New Jersey, was at the front line of the mob’s fight against police in a tunnel when one of the officers was briefly crushed between rioters and tunnel doors, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit. Giberson waved other rioters into the tunnel before joining a second round of “heave ho” pushing against police, the agent said.

Giberson tried in vain to start a chant of “Drag them out!” and then cheered on rioters using weapons and pepper spray against police in the tunnel, according to the FBI. Giberson remained in that area for roughly an hour on Jan. 6, 2021, the affidavit says.

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Giberson was arrested in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, on charges including a felony count of civil disorder, according to a court filing. He faces four other counts including engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds.

A federal magistrate judge ordered Giberson’s release from custody after his initial court appearance in Washington on Tuesday.

Charles Burnham, an attorney for Giberson, declined to comment on the charges.

University spokesman Michael Hotchkiss said in an email Tuesday that Giberson is currently enrolled at Princeton as an undergraduate.

“We don’t have anything to add beyond that,” Hotchkiss wrote.

Giberson was wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat and a Trump flag around his neck when he joined the mob’s assault on police officers in a tunnel on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrance, the affidavit says.

The FBI posted images of Giberson on social media to seek the public’s help in identifying him. Online sleuths also posted mages of Giberson online using the “#DragThemOut” hashtag moniker.

Investigators matched photos of Giberson from the Capitol to several images found on Instagram and Princeton University’s website, the FBI agent said. The FBI interviewed Giberson at the Princeton Police Department in the presence of an attorney before his arrest.

Approximately 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot, which disrupted the joint session of Congress for certifying President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

The FBI agent’s affidavit doesn’t say whether Giberson attended the “Stop the Steal” rally where then-President Donald Trump addressed a crowd of supporters on Jan. 6.

A federal judge heard trial testimony without a jury before convicting Virginia resident Hatchet Speed, a former U.S. Naval reservist who was assigned to an agency that operates spy satellites. U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden is scheduled to sentence Speed on May 8 for his role in a mob’s attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

McFadden convicted Speed of all five charges in his indictment, including a felony count of obstructing an official proceeding, the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress for certifying the Electoral College vote. The judge also convicted Speed of four misdemeanors.

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The FBI recorded Speed’s conversations with the undercover agent more than a year after the riot. Speed told the agent that he marched to the Capitol with members of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group, authorities said.

Speed also spewed antisemitic rhetoric linked to his dislike for government, according to prosecutors. They argued that Speed’s hateful ideology helps explain why he joined the Capitol attack.

Speed was “deeply worried about a Biden presidency” and believed false claims that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from Donald Trump, the Republican incumbent, prosecutors wrote in a court filing. They said Speed expressed his admiration for Adolf Hitler and told the undercover agent that he believes Jewish people control Biden, a Democrat.

“Speed saw the Jews as ‘everywhere,’ fighting to destroy Christians, and he was not willing to sit by,” prosecutors wrote.

McFadden said the limited trial testimony about Speed’s antisemitism wasn’t a factor in his verdict. But the judge cited statements that Speed made about Jan. 6 in support of his conviction on the obstruction charge.

“His own words show the defendant’s actions were knowing and willful,” the judge said.

Speed, 41, was arrested in June 2022 on riot-related misdemeanor charges. A grand jury later indicted him on the felony obstruction charge.

On Jan. 6, Speed drove to Washington, D.C, from his home in Vienna, Virginia. After attending the “Stop the Steal” rally, where Trump addressed a crowd of supporters, Speed joined the mob that attacked the Capitol.

Around 3 p.m., Speed entered the building through a door to the Senate wing of the Capitol after other rioters breached it. He remained inside the Capitol for roughly 40 minutes.

After leaving, he texted another rioter that he had “backed out” after hearing that the “vote had been postponed.”

“In other words,” prosecutors wrote, “because Speed thought he succeeded in obstructing the certification, he left the U.S. Capitol Building.”

An undercover FBI agent, posing as “a like-minded individual,” met with Speed at least three times in March 2022 and April 2022. The FBI recorded their discussions of his motives and actions on Jan. 6.

“Speed wanted to stop that certification. He left the U.S. Capitol only because he believed he succeeded in that effort,” prosecutors wrote.

During the recorded conversations, Speed also “outlined a plan to enlist Christians to wipe out the country’s entire Jewish population.”

“To defeat the Jewish threat and topple the government, Speed told the (agent) that a violent response was necessary — and that the Jews stood in the way,” prosecutors wrote.

Speed began “panic buying” thousands of dollars worth of firearms and silencers in February 2021, prosecutors wrote. They said Speed later told the agent that he had a plan “to kidnap and disappear his enemies after mock trials, and he thought the silencers could come in useful for the effort.”

The undercover agent testified under a pseudonym at a separate trial for Speed in Virginia on gun charges. After a retrial in January, a federal jury in the Eastern District of Virginia convicted Speed of three counts of unlawful possession of an unregistered firearm silencer. He is sentenced to be sentenced for those convictions on April 13.

Speed’s attorneys accused prosecutors of treating him like “a political puppet.” They also accused the Justice Department of engaging in “last-minute gamesmanship,” bringing the felony obstruction charge in Speed’s Washington case only after his first trial in Virginia ended in December with a deadlocked jury and a mistrial.

“Because the government failed to convince a jury of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt under the crimes alleged, the government simply chose to allege more crimes,” they wrote in a court filing.

Prosecutors said they decided to bring the obstruction charge as they began preparing for trial “in earnest.”

“This is not a vindictive prosecution. It is a well-founded one,” they wrote.

Speed was a petty officer first class in the U.S. Naval Reserves and was assigned to the Naval Warfare Space Field Activity at the National Reconnaissance Office, the FBI said. The National Reconnaissance Office operates U.S. spy satellites used by the Pentagon and intelligence agencies. The agency said Speed was not part of the reserve unit at the time of the Jan. 6 riot.

Hicks and her lawyer, Robert Trout, spent several hours inside the Manhattan district attorney’s office and, afterward, were seen walking to a waiting SUV. They didn’t say anything to reporters as they got in the vehicle.

Trout declined comment. The district attorney’s office also declined comment and would not confirm prosecutors interviewed Hicks, who was previously questioned in 2018 by federal prosecutors who looked into the same conduct.

Hicks served as Trump’s 2016 campaign press secretary and spoke with Trump by phone during a frenzied effort to keep his alleged affairs out of the press in the final weeks before the election, according to court records from the federal probe. Hicks later held various roles in his White House, including communications director.

Last week, prosecutors questioned Cohen, who arranged payments to two women, and Trump’s former political adviser Kellyanne Conway.

After his session last Friday, Cohen told reporters that the probe is “really progressing.” He said he expects to testify soon before a grand jury that’s been hearing evidence since January.

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“The level of specificity to which they are attacking the various issues is extraordinary,” said Cohen, adding that he’s met with prosecutors 18 times through several iterations of the probe.

Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges including campaign finance violations for arranging the payouts to porn actor Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal to keep them from going public. Trump has denied the affairs.

Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 through his own company and was then reimbursed by Trump, whose company logged the reimbursements as “legal expenses.” McDougal’s $150,000 payment was made through the publisher of the supermarket tabloid the National Enquirer, which squelched her story in a journalistically dubious practice known as “catch-and-kill.”

According to court records from the federal investigation, Hicks spoke for several minutes by phone with Trump and Cohen on Oct. 8, 2016, the day after the release of the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump boasted in graphic detail about grabbing women’s genitals.

Cohen, concerned that the campaign would be irreparably damaged by stories about Trump’s alleged affairs, then spoke with top executives at the National Enquirer before calling Trump, according to the records. Cohen then phoned Trump again at 8:03 p.m. and spoke to him for eight minutes, followed by more calls, and text messages involving Cohen and a National Enquirer executive.

The hush-money payment to McDougal remained secret until days before the election, when The Wall Street Journal published a story about it. Court records show that Cohen and Hicks expressed relief to each other that the story did not receive the attention they feared it would.

“So far I see only 6 stories. Getting little to no traction,” Cohen texted, according to the records.

“Same. Keep praying!! It’s working!” Hicks responded.

Last year, Hicks was interviewed by the House Jan. 6 committee, telling the panel that Trump told her that no one would care about his legacy if he lost the 2020 election. She told the committee that Trump told her, “The only thing that matters is winning.”

Hicks was also a key witness in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and provided important information about Trump’s attempts to obstruct that investigation.

As for the hush-money probe, the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan decided not to prosecute Trump personally over the payments. The Manhattan district attorney’s office then began investigating the payments to see if any state laws were broken.

No charges were brought against Trump during the tenure of former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., who shifted the probe’s focus to the Trump Organization’s business practices. The company was convicted in December of tax fraud and fined $1.6 million.

The current district attorney, Alvin Bragg, has shown renewed interest in pursuing more charges, possibly against Trump himself. Doing so would be unprecedented. No former president has ever been charged with a crime.

Conway’s lawyer didn’t respond to multiple messages about her meeting last week with prosecutors, which was first reported by The New York Times.

Trump’s lawyers have said that the payments to the two women broke no laws. Trump says the investigation is politically motivated.

A federal judge in Washington issued bench warrants for the arrest of Olivia Pollock and Joseph Hutchinson III last week after the court was notified that they had tampered with or removed the ankle monitors that track their location, said Joe Boland, a supervisory special agent with the FBI’s Lakeland, Florida office.

Boland said the FBI has recovered one of the defendants’ ankle monitors after they removed it, but declined to say whether it was Pollock’s or Hutchinson’s. As of Monday afternoon, the FBI had not located either of them, he said.

Olivia Pollock, of Lakeland, is the sister of another Jan. 6 defendant, Jonathan Pollock, who has been on the lam for months. The FBI has offered a reward of up $30,000 in exchange for information leading to the arrest and conviction of her brother, who is accused of assaulting multiple police officers during the riot.

Olivia Pollock and Hutchinson were initially arrested in 2021 and charged in a five-person indictment with assaulting law enforcement and other crimes. Hutchinson is representing himself at trial, and an attorney appointed to assist him as standby counsel declined to comment on Monday.

Olivia Pollock’s lawyer, Elita Amato, said Monday that her client “had been diligently assisting in her defense for her upcoming trial prior to her disappearance.”

Authorities encouraged anyone with information about their whereabouts to contact the FBI.

Olivia Pollock, who was wearing a ballistic plate-carrier vest during the riot, is accused of elbowing an officer in the chest and trying to strip the officer’s baton away during the melee. Jonathan Pollock is accused of thrusting a riot shield into an officer’s face and throat, pulling an officer down steps and punching others.

Authorities say Hutchinson pulled back a fence that allowed other rioters to swarm police trying to defend the Capitol, punched an officer and grabbed the sleeve of another before throwing the officer out of his way.

Hutchinson, who now lives in Georgia, was scheduled to face trial in August. The judge on Monday rescheduled Olivia Pollock’s trial for August as well.

Also on Monday, a Colorado man pleaded guilty on to using a chemical spray to attack police officers who were trying to hold off the mob.

Robert Gieswein, of Woodland Park, Colorado, is scheduled to be sentenced on June 9. Estimated sentencing guidelines for Gieswein recommend a prison sentence ranging from three years and five months to four years and three months, according to his plea agreement.

Gieswein was wearing a helmet, flak jacket and goggles and carrying a baseball bat when he stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He marched to the building from the Washington Monument with members of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group.

Gieswein repeatedly sprayed an “aerosol irritant” at police officers, pushed against a line of police and was one of the first rioters to enter the Capitol, according to a court filing accompanying his guilty plea to assault charges.

Federal authorities have said Gieswein appeared to be an adherent of the Three Percenters militia movement and ran a private paramilitary training group called the Woodland Wild Dogs.

Nearly 1,000 people have been charged so far in the riot. Sentences have ranged from probation for people who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor crimes to 10 years in prison for a retired New York Police Department officer who used a metal flagpole to assault an officer.

____

Associated Press reporter Michael Kunzelman in Washington contributed to this report.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the Capitol riot at https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege

Thomas Sibick pleaded guilty to assault and theft charges for his role in the attack on Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson is scheduled to sentence Sibick on July 28. The judge allowed Sibick to remain free on bond until that hearing.

Estimated sentencing guidelines call for Sibick to receive a prison sentence ranging from a low of two years and nine months to a high of nearly six years, according to his plea agreement.

Rioters kicked, punched, grabbed and shocked Fanone with a stun gun after pulling him away from other officers who were guarding a tunnel entrance on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace. Another rioter threatened to take Fanone’s gun and kill him.

Fanone’s body camera captured Sibick removing the officer’s badge and radio from his tactical vest during the mob’s attack, according to a court filing accompanying his guilty plea.

Others in the crowd escorted Fanone back to the police line. Before FBI agents showed him the body camera video, Sibick initially denied assaulting Fanone and claimed that he tried in vain to pull the officer away from his attackers.

Sibick said he buried Fanone’s badge in his backyard after returning home to Buffalo, New York. He returned the badge, but Fanone’s $5.500 radio hasn’t been recovered.

Other rioters have been charged with attacking Fanone, who lost consciousness and was taken to an emergency room.

Albuquerque Cosper Head, a Tennessee man who dragged Fanone into the crowd, was sentenced in October 2022 to seven years and six month in prison. During Head’s sentencing, Fanone said the attack gave him a heart attack and a traumatic brain injury and ultimately cost him his career.

Kyle Young, an Iowa man who grabbed Fanone by the wrist and handed a stun gun to another rioter who used it on the officer, was sentenced in September 2022 to seven years and two months in prison.

A California man, Daniel Rodriguez, pleaded guilty in February to using a stun gun on Fanone during the attack. Rodriguez is scheduled to be sentenced on May 16.

Approximately 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the riot on Jan. 6, when the mob of Donald Trump supporters disrupted the joint session of Congress for certifying President Joe Biden’s electoral victory. More than 500 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors. Approximately 400 have been sentenced, with over half getting terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 10 years.

Jesse James Rumson was arrested in Florida on Monday, according to court records, and charged with multiple offenses including assaulting, resisting or impeding an officer and engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds.

Video from Jan. 6 shows that a man wearing a panda head entered the U.S. Capitol through an emergency fire escape seconds after it was broken open by members of the mob and quickly made his way toward police officers who were trying to keep the rioters back.

Online sleuths who have helped identify hundreds of Capitol rioters dubbed the individual “Sedition Panda” and had surfaced photos of him.

Read more at NBCNews.com.

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Christopher Maurer, 45, was taken into custody in Westbrook and was set to appear in federal court on a slew of charges, including assaulting, resisting or impeding officers with a dangerous weapon and civil disorder, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

Maurer is accused of entering the tunnel on the Capitol’s lower west terrace twice, first trying to hit officers who were helping a rioter who needed medical attention, then again about 90 minutes later.

That’s when, prosecutors say, Maurer swung a large metal pole or pipe he’d picked up from the ground and swung it at the line of officers defending the tunnel after getting sprayed with a chemical irritant.

Prosecutors shared surveillance footage images they said show Maurer at the tunnel’s mouth.

Maurer is one of more than 985 people arrested and about 319 charged in the federal investigation into the deadly riot, which interrupted the tallying of electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election won by Joe Biden. His case was being investigated by FBI agents in Boston and Washington, with help from police in Westbrook and Washington.

It wasn’t immediately clear if Maurer had an attorney who could speak to his arrest.

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