Ray Epps, a former Arizona resident who on Jan. 5, 2021, was captured on video advocating for entering the US Capitol the following day, on Tuesday was sentenced on to a year of probation for joining the riot in Washington.
Epps in September last year pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge. He received no jail time and there were no restrictions placed on his travel during his probation, but he will have to serve 100 hours of community service.
He appeared remotely by videoconference and was not in the Washington courtroom when Chief Judge James Boasberg sentenced him. Prosecutors had recommended a six-month prison term.
File Photo: AP
On the evening of Jan. 5, 2021, Epps was in a crowd at Washington’s Black Lives Matter Plaza when he was captured on video advocating for entering the Capitol the following day.
“We’re here to storm the Capitol,” he said.
At then-US president Donald Trump’s “stop the steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021, Epps was recorded telling other attendees: “As soon as the president is done speaking, we go to the Capitol. The Capitol is this way.”
At the Capitol, Epps was photographed whispering into the ear of another man before rioters breached a police barricade.
Epps also helped other rioters push a large, metal-framed sign into a group of police officers and participated in “a rugby scrum-like group effort” to push past a line of officers, assistant US attorney Michael Gordon said in a court filing.
“Even if Epps did not physically touch law enforcement officers or go inside of the building, he undoubtedly engaged in collective aggressive conduct,” Gordon wrote.
The government initially declined to prosecute Epps in 2021 after the FBI investigated his conduct on Jan. 6, 2021, and found insufficient evidence to charge him with a crime.
More than 1,200 defendants have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. More than 900 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted after trials decided by a judge or jury. Approximately 750 rioters have been sentenced, with nearly two-thirds getting some term of imprisonment.
Epps told the judge that he now knows that he never should have believed reports of a stolen election.
“I have learned that truth is not always found in the places that I used to trust,” Epps said.
Federal prosecutors have backed up Epps’ denials that he was a government plant or FBI operative.
They say Epps has never been a government employee or agent beyond serving in the US Marines from 1979 to 1983.
Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio in September last year was sentenced to 22 years in prison for orchestrating the US Capitol attack.
Tarrio was not in Washington on the day of the riot, but prosecutors said he organized and led the assault from afar.
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