WASHINGTON — 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. Certainly one of them is heading to trial and confronted a courtroom filled with potential jurors on Monday. The opposite might be a key prosecution witness.
The federal trial of former Rocky Mount police officer Thomas Robertson would be the third amongst a whole bunch 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 in Robertson’s trial began on Monday in Washington, D.C. Certainly one of his former colleagues, Jacob Fracker, was scheduled to affix him on trial. As a substitute, 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. He’s listed as a possible trial witness.
Robertson is charged with six counts, together with obstruction of an official continuing, civil dysfunction, getting into and remaining in a restricted constructing and disorderly conduct in a Capitol constructing.
U.S. District Choose Christopher Cooper mentioned he hopes to complete deciding on a jury on Monday and end with trial testimony this week, however he informed members of the jury pool that the trial might stretch into subsequent week. The decide requested potential jurors if they’ve any direct or oblique connections to the occasions of Jan. 6 and if they might put aside any sturdy political views to be honest and neutral.
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 bunch of individuals charged with becoming a member of the mob that stormed the Capitol.
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 court docket submitting in Fracker’s case says Robertson introduced three gasoline 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 gasoline masks and joined the rising mob, the submitting says.
Robertson was carrying a big wood stick and used it to impede Metropolitan Police Division officers who arrived to assist Capitol law enforcement officials maintain off the mob, in response to prosecutors. Robertson was photographed within the Capitol’s crypt making an obscene gesture in entrance of a statute of John Stark, an American common throughout the Revolutionary Warfare, prosecutors mentioned.
After the riot, Robertson posted a string of Fb messages that have been “illustrative of a honest dedication to violence,” prosecutors mentioned. In a Jan. 8 publish, Robertson wrote, “Being good, well mannered, writing letters and sending emails hasn’t labored.”
“All thats left is violence and YOU and your ‘Mates on the opposite facet of the isle’ have pushed Individuals 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 response to prosecutors.
A Capitol police officer informed Robertson he might enter the constructing however should not go into any “restrictive areas,” protection lawyer Mark Rollins mentioned in a court docket submitting final 12 months. Robertson was contained in the Capitol for less than 10 minutes and did not assault anyone or break something, Rollins mentioned.
Robertson was arrested per week after the riot and initially launched from custody. However he has been jailed since 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 decide rejected the previous officer’s suggestion that the firearms merely have been World Warfare II collectibles.
Robertson served within the U.S. Army earlier than working as a police officer in Vinton, Virginia, in response to Rollins. Robertson rejoined the Army 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 changing into a sergeant, in response to his lawyer.
“He’s a proud veteran with a love for his Nation,” Rollins wrote.
Robertson’s trial would be the first for someone accused of getting 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 Faculty vote, interfering with law enforcement officials who have been guarding the Capitol and threatening his two teenage kids in the event that they reported him to legislation enforcement.
Within the second trial, a decide convicted Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin, an elected official in New Mexico, of illegally getting into restricted U.S. Capitol grounds. However the decide, who heard testimony with out a jury, additionally acquitted Griffin of partaking in disorderly conduct.
Reffitt and Griffin entered restricted areas exterior 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 decide who convicted Griffin is about to determine Martin’s case.
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