Insurrection Detection

      James Mels , a 56-year-old from Michigan, pleaded guilty to entering a restricted building or grounds, a class A misdemeanor, and faces up to a year in prison when he is sentenced later this year.       Samuel Rodriguez , a 34-year-old Pennsylvania man who mocked George Floyd's death on the steps of the Capitol along with a fellow insurrectionist named Jackson Kostolsky and called the FBI in January 2021 to "clear his name," was arrested on four misdemeanor charges carrying a maximum penalty of three years behind bars.       Mark Ponder , one of only a handful of Washington, D.C. residents arrested in the January 6th insurrection and a man with a long and violent criminal history, was sentenced to 63 months in prison with three years of probation and $2,000 restitution for beating three different police officers, including Aquilino Gonell (who testified before the House Select Committee) with a pole, breaking it against Gonell's riot sh...

     Mark Ponder is a degenerate. His case, however, provides a very good insight into how the federal sentencing guidelines work, particularly as it relates to cases stemming from the January 6th insurrection. Between December 2021, when Robert Scott Palmer's sentence was handed down, and July 2022, when Ponder was sentenced, Palmer held the sole distinction of having the longest sentence for the insurrection. This Florida man who became known for his American flag jacket stood on the Upper West Terrace holding a sign that read "Biden is a pedophile" before traveling to the Lower West Terrace and committing a series of felonies. He threw a wooden plank at police before picking up a fire extinguisher and spraying police with it, throwing the fire extinguisher at the police, and then picking it up after it rolled onto the ground and throwing it again. Thankfully, no police officers were injured. However, Palmer was in deep shit: he pleaded guilty to a felony charge of assa...

      Guy Reffitt , the man who threatened to kill his own son for turning him in and the first rioter to be convicted at trial, had his sentencing date set for August 1st; meanwhile, it was revealed that the DOJ would be seeking its first terrorism enhancement for a January 6th defendant and a sentence of 15 years, which, if handed down, would be nearly three times as long as the longest sentence handed down so far.       David Ticas of California was sentenced to 14 days in prison with two years of probation, 60 hours of community service, and $500 restitution after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge for parading in the Capitol.       Kevin Blakely , 55, of McKinney, Texas, was sentenced to four months in prison with 18 months of probation and $500 restitution after pleading guilty to violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, a class A misdemeanor.       Kerry Wayne Persick , Blakely's companion, was sent...

     I have taken and will continue to take action highlighting those who enable the January 6th insurrectionists and defend their actions, the prime example being Jacob Fracker's wife Luisa, whom I have highlighted before. Joshua James is another prime example. An Oath Keeper charged in the January 6th insurrection, his wife posted videos of herself crying online, whining about how she and her children were awoken to flashbang grenades in the early hours of the morning and how her children had to go to school the next day knowing their father was going to be sent away after his arrest in an FBI raid. She even raised $200,000 on the far-right Christian fundraising site GiveSendGo, ostensibly for legal bills and to make up for James' lost income. She posted dramatic messages as her husband rotted in jail and as his charges were continually upgraded, making him out to be the victim of a media and government conspiracy. In the end, she was right about one thing, and it high...

      Dennis Sidorski , the 46-year-old Virginia man known for wearing an "American supremacist" sweatshirt inside the Capitol building, was sentenced to 100 days in prison with a year of probation and $500 restitution for disorderly and disruptive conduct in the Capitol building.       Nicholas Rodean , the 28-year-old Maryland man who wore his work badge to the U.S. Capitol, was convicted at a bench trial of one felony count of destroy government property and six related class A and class B misdemeanor charges for trespassing and disorderly conduct. These seven charges carry a combined maximum sentence of 14.5 years in prison when he is sentenced in October, although he will likely get a far shorter sentence.       Patricia Todisco  and  Marissa Suarez , both 33 years old and from New Jersey, were each sentenced to three years of probation with 60 hours of community service and $2,500 in fines and reparations after pleading guilty...

     Maryland has been the center of a lot of the action related to Capitol riot legal proceedings this week. Nicholas Rodean , the man who famously wore his work badge to the Capitol and appeared next to QAnon Shaman Jacob Chansley, was convicted on all charges, including a felony, by a Trump-appointed judge; he faces a maximum of 14 years and six months in prison when he is sentenced in October. In a few days, I will be highlighting the case of a Capitol rioter from Maryland separately charged with federal gun and drug offenses. Also coming up is the trial of Maryland resident Daniel Egtvedt, the overweight GOP donor tossed down the steps of the Capitol by police officers he berated and resisted.      Then there's David Blair. There are few moments from the Capitol riot that send chills down my spine, but the case of David Blair is one of them. There were a handful of black Capitol rioters, nearly all of them from the District of Columbia itself, that Tru...

     Nicole, Nicole. Nicole Reffitt was and is married to incarcerated insurrectionist Guy Reffitt, the first man to be convicted by a jury or at a trial of any kind for charges related to the January 6th insurrection. Reffitt was convicted by a jury of five felony charges on March 8th, 2022; rioters Thomas Robertson, Dustin Thompson, Thomas Webster, Timothy Louis Hale-Cusanelli, and Anthony Williams would go on to be convicted on all counts by juries over the next four months, including at least one felony charge carrying prison time in each of these cases. Nicole has become one of the leaders of the alt-right movement that paints Capitol rioters as "political prisoners" and seeks to grift millions of dollars in funds from gullible conservatives across the country, ostensibly for legal costs. Reffitt said that the government wanted to "make an example" out of her husband. (I mean, that is part of the purpose of the legal system and incarceration in any criminal cas...

     It's taking a long time to arrest Capitol riot defendants for a simple reason: there are a lot of cases (nearly 900). In one case, that of Lucas Denney of Texas, prosecutors actually risked having the charges against the rioter dismissed, serious felony charges, after they forgot about his case; luckily, Denney was one of the myriad of rioters who is representing himself, and he chose to plead guilty to a felony civil disorder charge without an agreement with the federal government, meaning he still faces numerous other federal charges and a long prison sentence. For the first time in my life, I'd actually like to thank the Texas school system.      A prime example of this came just recently, when Lilith Saer, who was identified almost immediately after the riots, was finally arrested. Oregon's Capitol cases are very interesting: hers is just the seventh in the state related to the events of January 6th, of whom three were among only the dozen or so ar...

     The photo that came to define the Capitol riot was arguably that of QAnon Shaman Jacob Chansley surrounded by a dozen or so fellow rioters. These men were some of the most recognizable faces, and they haven't been getting off easily. Chansley himself pled guilty to a felony charge of obstructing an official proceeding and was sentenced to 41 months in prison. Aaron Mostofsky, the "Caveman" rioter and son of a New York Supreme Court judge, was sentenced to eight months in prison for felony civil disorder and two related misdemeanor crimes. Dominic Pezzola, the Proud Boy who broke the window of the Capitol with a riot shield he robbed a police officer of, has been charged with seditious conspiracy and numerous other felonies and will have been in jail for at least 18 months if his trial begins as scheduled in late September. William Watson, the man pictured above in the yellow sweatshirt, is still facing numerous felony charges and was sent to jail for traveling to D.C...

      Jordan T. Revlett , the 23-year-old Kentucky man known for placing in a 2019 "sexy farmer" contest, was sentenced to 14 days in prison with a year of probation, 80 hours of community service, and $500 restitution after pleading guilty to a class B misdemeanor of picketing, parading, or demonstrating in the Capitol building.       Jeremy Grace , 38, an Oregon Proud Boy who was arrested with his father for the Capitol insurrection after being photographed just behind the "Lectern Guy" in the infamous photograph, was sentenced to 21 days in prison, a year of probation, 60 hours of community service, and $500 restitution after pleading guilty to entering a restricted building or grounds.       Robert Snow , the 78-year-old Arkansas man who peed on a column inside the Capitol building, was sentenced to a year of probation with 60 hours of community service and $500 restitution for picketing, parading, or demonstrating inside the U.S. Capitol...

     The Capitol rioters from Idaho certainly haven't been getting off easily. The most memorable is Josiah Colt, the man who hung from the Senate balcony; Colt pleaded guilty to felony obstruction of an official proceeding and will receive a likely sentence of around 41 to 51 months in prison; his co-conspirator Nathaniel DeGrave, of Nevada, pleaded guilty to two felony charges of obstruction of an official proceeding and assaulting law enforcement while another co-conspirator, Ronald Sandlin, of Tennessee, is expected to plead guilty to at least one felony charge in the coming months. Duke Wilson of Idaho was sentenced to 51 months in prison after pleading guilty to assaulting law enforcement and obstructing an official proceeding; he must also spend three years on probation, perform 200 hours of community service, and pay $2,000 in restitution. Pamela Hemphill, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, was sentenced to two months in prison with three years of probation and ...

     Jacob Fracker and Thomas Robertson quickly made national news. Both veterans, they both became police officers in the small Virginia town of Rocky Mount, rode together as partners, grew so close that Robertson referred to Fracker as his "son," and even went viral in the summer of 2020 for dancing with Black Lives Matter protestors together. Then, on January 6th, 2021, they stormed the Capitol together. They were both fired, both arrested, and both charged with felonies. Here, their paths split greatly. Robertson was initially released on bond but sent back to jail in July 2021 after authorities discovered he had purchased dozens of weapons and assembled a pipe bomb illegally in his home, which his son tried to lie about and his lawyers tried to downplay, respectively. Robertson took his case to trial and was convicted of five felonies and a misdemeanor carrying a combined maximum of 56 years in prison on April 11th, 2022. Fracker pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstr...

      Guy Reffitt is a scumbag. He may claim to back the blue, but he is a member of anti-government hate groups like the Three Percenters in his home state of Texas. He was the tip of the spear in the storming of the Capitol on January 6th, and he threatened his son and daughter with graphic violence for turning him in to the federal authorities. He was the first defendant to take his case to trial and was found guilty of five felony charges by a jury. He is awaiting sentencing.       Couy Griffin wasn't violent on January 6th, but he was among the more dangerous individuals there. He climbed up a barricade and gave a speech to the rioters that day, but he founded the organization "Cowboys for Trump" and served on the Otero County, New Mexico Commission, where he went viral last month for refusing to certify 8,000 votes in the county simply because he had a "funny feeling" about the voting machines, a move that forced the New Mexico Supreme Court to step...

     Riley Douglas Kasper, in the course of a day, went from a nobody, a common thug, to a domestic terrorist who participated in one of the most infamous events in American history. His family will likely try the predictable excuses that they never could have seen this coming, that he's not a violent person, that he's a good man, etc. Aside from the fact that that doesn't account for his actions on January 6th even if it were true, it actually is completely false.      Riley Kasper was born on December 4th, 1998. During his childhood, he made a number of YouTube videos under the online name "disturbed1953." They ranged from a video of him spinning in his chair to one of his then-two-year-old cousin drumming to hunting and fishing tips to a video of two cats procreating . The videos brought a mixture of emotions. There were some existential thoughts with that final video, published on June 17th, 2010, knowing that those cats are now both dead. (I'm a ca...