Over a 12 months in the past, two off-duty law enforcement officials from a small city in Virginia have been charged with storming the U.S. Capitol collectively. A trial for considered one of them begins this week. The opposite might be a key prosecution witness.
The trial of former Rocky Mount police officer Thomas Robertson would be the third amongst a whole lot of individuals charged within the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol. The primary two trials each ended with convictions, though a kind of defendants was acquitted of a disorderly conduct cost.
Jury choice for Robertson’s trial is scheduled to begin Monday in Washington, D.C. One in all his former colleagues, Jacob Fracker, was scheduled to affix him on trial. As an alternative, Fracker reached a plea deal and agreed to cooperate with federal authorities.
Fracker pleaded responsible final month to conspiring to hinder an official continuing, the joint session of Congress that convened Jan. 6 to certify President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
Robertson is charged with six counts, together with obstruction of an official continuing, civil dysfunction, coming into and remaining in a restricted constructing and disorderly conduct in a Capitol constructing.
Robertson and Fracker each served as law enforcement officials in Rocky Mount, a city about 25 miles south of Roanoke with roughly 5,000 residents. The city fired each of them after their arrests.
Different former law enforcement officials are among the many a whole lot of individuals charged with becoming a member of the mob that stormed the Capitol riot.
Tam Dinh Pham, an off-duty Houston police officer on Jan. 6, was sentenced in December to 45 days imprisonment after pleading responsible to a riot-related misdemeanor. A trial is scheduled to begin on April 25 for Thomas Webster, a retired New York Metropolis police officer charged with assaulting an officer on the Capitol. Former North Miami Seaside police officer Nicholes Lentz, who additionally pleaded responsible to a riot-related misdemeanor, is scheduled to be sentenced Might 10.
Robertson and Fracker drove with a neighbor to Washington on the morning of Jan. 6. A courtroom submitting in Fracker’s case says Robertson introduced three fuel masks for them to make use of. After listening to speeches close to the Washington Monument, Fracker, Robertson and the neighbor walked towards the Capitol, donned the fuel masks and joined the rising mob, the submitting says.
Robertson was carrying a big picket stick and used it to impede Metropolitan Police Division officers who arrived to assist Capitol law enforcement officials maintain off the mob, in keeping with prosecutors. Robertson was photographed within the Capitol’s crypt making an obscene gesture in entrance of a statute of John Stark, an American normal throughout the Revolutionary Struggle, prosecutors stated.
After the riot, Robertson posted a string of Fb messages that have been “illustrative of a honest dedication to violence,” prosecutors stated. In a Jan. 8 put up, Robertson wrote, “Being good, well mannered, writing letters and sending emails hasn’t labored.”
“All thats left is violence and YOU and your ‘Associates on the opposite aspect of the isle’ have pushed People into that nook. The image of Senators cowering on the ground with real concern on their faces is probably the most American factor I've seen in my life,” he wrote, in keeping with prosecutors.
A Capitol police officer instructed Robertson he might enter the constructing however shouldn’t go into any “restrictive areas,” protection lawyer Mark Rollins stated in a courtroom submitting final 12 months. Robertson was contained in the Capitol for under 10 minutes and didn’t assault anyone or break something, Rollins stated.
Robertson was arrested per week after the riot and initially launched from custody. However he has been jailed since U.S. District Decide Christopher Cooper dominated in July that he violated the phrases of his pretrial launch by possessing firearms.
Robertson ordered 34 weapons earlier than June 29, when FBI brokers searched his house in Ferrum, Virginia. The choose rejected the previous officer’s suggestion that the firearms merely have been World Struggle II collectibles.
Robertson served within the U.S. Military earlier than working as a police officer in Vinton, Virginia, in keeping with Rollins. Robertson rejoined the Military in 2001 and was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, the place he was wounded by gunshot and mortar shrapnel in 2011. Robertson underwent 10 surgical procedures earlier than returning to the Rocky Mount Police Division and turning into a sergeant, in keeping with his lawyer.
“He's a proud veteran with a love for his Nation,” Rollins wrote.
Robertson’s trial would be the first for anyone accused of coming into the Capitol constructing throughout the riot.
Within the first Capitol riot trial, a jury convicted a Texas man of storming the Capitol with a holstered handgun. Man Wesley Reffitt additionally was convicted on March 8 of obstructing Congress’ joint session to certify the Electoral School vote, interfering with law enforcement officials who have been guarding the Capitol and threatening his two teenage youngsters in the event that they reported him to legislation enforcement.
Within the second trial, a choose convicted Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin, an elected official in New Mexico, of illegally coming into restricted U.S. Capitol grounds. However the choose, who heard testimony and not using a jury, additionally acquitted Griffin of participating in disorderly conduct.
Reffitt and Griffin entered restricted areas outdoors the Capitol however not the constructing itself.
One other Capitol riot trial is scheduled to begin Tuesday for Matthew Martin, a federal contractor who held a top-secret safety clearance whereas working for a protection contracting firm on the Nationwide Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The identical choose who convicted Griffin is ready to resolve Martin’s case.
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