AP - Texas jury convicts a Jan. 6 defendant, one reportedly having ties to a Texas Three Percent militia. A former prosecutor said: "... canary in the coal mine . . ."
Gregg Sofer, a former federal prosecutor who served as
U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas from October 2020 to
February 2021, said before Reffitt's trial started that it would be "the
canary in the coal mine."
"If you're a defendant
awaiting trial at this point, the canary just died," said Sofer, now a
partner at the law firm Husch Blackwell. "I do think it is likely to
affect people's perceptions about the likelihood of their success."
Reffitt, 49, of Wylie, Texas,
didn't testify at his trial, which started last Wednesday. He showed
little visible reaction to the verdict, but his face was covered by a
mask.
Outside court, his wife
Nicole said the verdict was "against all American people. If you're
going to be convicted on your First Amendment rights, all Americans
should be wary. This fight has just begun."
She said her husband was being used as an example by the government. "You are all in danger," she said.
In a statement after the
verdict, U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves in Washington thanked the jury
"for upholding the rule of law and for its diligent service in this
case."
During the trial's closing
arguments on Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Risa Berkower told jurors
that Reffitt drove to Washington, D.C., intending to stop Congress from
certifying President Joe Biden's electoral victory. Reffitt proudly "lit
the fire" that allowed others in a mob to overwhelm Capitol police
officers near the Senate doors, the prosecutor said.
Reffitt was not accused of
entering the Capitol building. Defense attorney William Welch said there
is no evidence that Reffitt damaged property, used force or physically
harmed anybody.
He will be sentenced June 8.
He could receive 20 years in prison on the top charge alone, but he's
likely to face far less time behind bars. Other rioters have pleaded
guilty; the longest sentence so far is five years and three months for
Robert Palmer, a Florida man who pleaded guilty to attacking police
officers at the Capitol.
[...] U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich presided over Reffitt's trial. Trump nominated her in 2017.
[...] Jurors saw videos that
captured the confrontation between a few Capitol police officers and a
mob of people, including Reffitt, who approached them on the west side
of the Capitol.
Reffitt was armed with a
Smith & Wesson pistol in a holster on his waist, carrying zip-tie
handcuffs and wearing body armor and a helmet equipped with a video
camera when he advanced on police, according to prosecutors. He
retreated after an officer pepper sprayed him in the face, but he waved
on other rioters who ultimately breached the building, prosecutors said.
Before the crowd advanced,
Reffitt used a megaphone to shout at police to step aside and to urge
the mob to push forward and overtake officers. Assistant U.S. Attorney
Jeffrey Nestler said Reffitt played a leadership role that day.
[...] Reffitt's 19-year-old son,
Jackson, testified last Thursday that his father threatened him and his
sister, then 16, after he drove home from Washington. Reffitt told his
children they would be traitors if they reported him to authorities and
said "traitors get shot," Jackson Reffitt recalled.
[,,,] Jackson Reffitt used a
cellphone app to secretly record his father boasting about his role in
the riot. Jurors heard excerpts of that family conversation.
Jackson Reffitt initially
contacted the FBI on Christmas Eve, less than two weeks before the riot,
to report concerns about his father's behavior and increasingly
worrisome rhetoric. But the FBI didn't respond until Jan. 6, after the
riot erupted.
Another key witness, Rocky
Hardie, said he and Reffitt were members of "Texas Three Percenters"
militia group. The Three Percenters militia movement refers to the myth
that only 3% of Americans fought in the Revolutionary War against the
British.
Hardie drove from Texas to
Washington with Reffitt. He testified that both of them were armed with
holstered handguns when they attended then-President Donald Trump's
"Stop the Steal" rally before the riot erupted. Reffitt also took an
AR-15 rifle to Washington but left it locked up in his car, Hardie said.
Dressing funky. Inciting others. Using a megaphone. Armed. After being pepper sprayed, not entering the Capitol. Sentencing will be interesting -- By the Trump nominated judge who presided at trial, presumably. Sentencing will say a lot.
Trump spoke. Same day - This guy acted.
___________UPDATED__________
But, as to this guy acted, what, really did he do? He dressed up with protective equipment and a helmet mounted camera. He showed up on Capitol grounds, behind crowd control barricades. He walked ahead of others up toward a door to the Capitol, was subject to repellent measures, retreated, and never entered the building nor broke anything. There is no claim he assaulted anyone in authority, nor anyone in the pressing crowd. He trespassed, dressed funny.
Bizapedia, here and here. Incorporating a business is not a crime, federally, nor in Texas. However, consider Politico:
A
Texas man who joined a mob at the Capitol on Jan. 6 told two rioters he
had set up a security company as a front to access law
enforcement-grade weaponry that could be used to "take back our
country," according to private, encrypted messages revealed Saturday by
prosecutors.
Guy Reffitt, who drove from Texas to
Washington, D.C., also said in recorded conversations that he and others
were carrying firearms during the siege of the Capitol. He also
encouraged his two associates to join the "Texas Three Percenters"
militia, according to the messages posted to Telegram.
"I have a new security business to
circumvent the 2nd Amendment issue," Reffitt told the pair. "Website is
under construction but business is licensed with Secretary of State,
Texas DPS, and Texas Board of Private Security. We can get ammo and
weapons available to law enforcement. We have an interior certified
training officer. Join us and lets take back our country. The fight has
only just begun."
Prosecutors described the arrangement
in an effort to persuade a judge that Reffitt is too dangerous to be
released before his trial on charges related to the Capitol assault.
Reffitt is a self-described Three Percenter, which prosecutors describe
as an ideology rooted in the notion that the current government is the
equivalent of British oppressors and can be overthrown by armed
militias.
They noted that Reffitt misled the FBI
about his company — TTP Security, LLC — telling them it had no
connection to the Texas Three Percenters. Rather, he said, it stood for
"Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures."
"However, the defendant’s January 9,
2021 Telegram message to his fellow rioters (and prospective TTP militia
members) reveals this to be false," prosecutors said.
Reffit's post-Jan. 6 recruitment
efforts were not the only startling aspect of prosecutors' allegations
against him. They also revealed that his behavior before Jan. 6 had so
alarmed his family that at least one member reported him to the FBI,
worrying he was "going to do some serious damage" to Congress.
And when Reffitt returned from D.C. on
Jan. 8, a family member covertly recorded his conversations and shared
them with law enforcement.
"These statements arguably indicate his
true intentions, as he was apparently not aware that anyone was
recording him," prosecutors noted.
In his conversations, he described
bringing a firearm into the Capitol, a significant admission since
federal authorities have indicated they have not yet proven that anyone
inside the Capitol carried a gun. Reffitt also said he was aware that
other rioters were carrying guns as well.
"I did bring a weapon on property that
we own. Federal grounds or not," he said. "The law is written, but it
doesn’t mean it’s right law. The people that were around me were all
carrying, too."
CNN, March 16, 2021 [UPDATE - link, see also, here]:
A
16-year-old testified against her father in court on Monday, as
prosecutors used against him what they had learned from his children
about his resolve to take part in the US Capitol riot.
"My
heart is broken. I see people in your family suffering. I see an
American family suffering," Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui said at the
hearing in Washington on Monday about how politics -- and the Capitol riot -- has divided American families.
During
the almost two-hour hearing, the daughter's testimony about her father,
Guy Reffitt, a Texas Three Percenter, became one of the most searing
examples of how close family and friends
have aided investigators with the dragnet following the insurrection.
The daughter said she didn't believe her father was dangerous if he were
to be released, but thought he had tried to intimidate her and her
brother after January 6 as he had discussed keeping his participation
quiet.
Reffitt's defense lawyer argued for his release, downplaying his words about violence as just talk.
Faruqui decided to keep Reffitt detained in jail pending trial.
Reffitt
allegedly drove to Washington with guns in his car in the days before
January 6 alongside another unnamed member of the Three Percenters
extremist paramilitary group, according to the Justice Department's
court filings.
After
the attack, he returned home to Texas -- where he was met by his
16-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son, who disapproved of his
pro-Trump politics. The trio argued, with Reffitt telling his daughter
he would put a bullet through her cell phone if she posted about him on
social media, according to court records and her testimony at the
hearing Monday. He finally told his daughter and son that if they turned
him in, they were traitors, and "traitors get shot," his daughter
testified.
The court hearing was at least the third time Reffitt's family members had given details to authorities about him.
[...]The daughter also had testified about her father to a grand jury, according to Monday's proceedings.
"He's
not a violent person. He just says things. He talks a lot. ... That's
just him being a drama queen," she said at the hearing. "I wasn't in
fear, I guess. It was annoying in a way."
In the days after the attack, Guy Reffitt was taped speaking inside his
home, and prosecutors now have the audio recordings, according to court
filings. At home, Reffitt talked about video he had taken on January 6,
bragged about and defended his part in the riot, and called it "a
preface" as he pledged that he wasn't done.
[...] Reffitt
had also sent messages in advance about "marching with heat," and after
the riot messaged others about shifting his target toward the
mainstream media and technology companies, according to the Justice
Department's court filings.
He also allegedly wrote to other Three Percenters, prosecutors say, over a messaging app about taking the Capitol "again."
[...]
A lot of talk. Actions during Jan. 6.
WaPo, about the same hearing CNN covered, aimed at either holding Reffitt until trial, or allowing some manner of release:
[...] U.S.
Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui said it was not Reffitt’s statements to
his family that prompted his detention order but the government’s
allegations that he appeared with body armor, a helmet, firearm and
plastic flex-cuffs on Capitol grounds. The judge said it appeared
Reffitt planned for violence before and after the event in encrypted
communications with other members of the right-wing anti-government
group, for which he said he conducts vetting and intelligence.
“I
have a new security business to circumvent the 2nd Amendment issue,”
Reffitt said via encrypted chat Jan. 9 to two recruits he met at the
Capitol, prosecutors said in court papers and a teleconference hearing.
He named his company TPP Security Services in the chat, prosecutors said.
“We
can get ammo and weapons available to law enforcement. . . . The fight
has only just begun,” Reffitt allegedly wrote, according to Assistant
U.S. Attorney Jeffrey S. Nestler.
Reffitt
allegedly directed other members to destroy evidence and be ready for
future violence, and kept an unregistered silencer in a safe, the
prosecutor said. He wrote Jan. 13: “This has only just begun and will
not end until we The People of The Republic have won our country back.
We had thousands of weapons and fired no rounds yet showed numbers. The
next time we will not be so cordial.”
Dallas News ended its post on the detention hearing:
A person with the name Guy Reffitt posted
a comment in October on a website for This Is Texas Freedom Force, a
“militia extremist group,” the FBI affidavit says.
The
group, founded in 2017, organized a protest in September of that year
over the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue from Lee Park in Dallas.
About 200 people attended the event. This Is Texas Freedom Force also
has rallied across the state to support other Confederate monuments and
markers. The group also has organized open carry events.
Flag-carrying
protesters joined the This Is Texas Freedom Force protest over removal
of the Robert E. Lee statue on Sept. 16, 2017, two days after the statue
was moved to Hensley Field. Guy Reffitt, of Wylie, who is accused of
storming the U.S. Capitol, was a member of the group, which has rallied
for the protection of Confederate monuments across Texas. (Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)
It
describes itself as a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization “with the
mission of protecting Texas History” and the rights of Texans.
This
Is Texas Freedom Force posted a response to the Reffitt arrest on its
website on Jan. 19, saying Reffitt had joined in June but hadn’t
attended any meetings or events. It also disputed the FBI’s
characterization of the group, saying that it is not an extremist
militia and that its members carry firearms to protect against threats
from “BLM & Antifa.”
Guy Reffitt
incorporated TTP Security Services in October, state records show. He
describes the business on Linkedin as providing personal protection
services and event security.
He has
worked in the oil field industry for more than 18 years, including on
offshore drilling rigs in Kuwait, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia, according to
his Linkedin account.
So, convicted of obstructing justice. Those "oil field industry" postings, depending on timing, look like potential conflict zones. Details of what he did then are absent from the public record. This is a strange situation, one who wrote and spoke and dressed and moved as a Jan. 6 provocateur; trespassed to the wrong side of a barrier; but never crossed a Capitol threshold and harmed no person or property. He may get off lightly, or they may throw the book at him. The "Trump judge" could do either. It will be fine, to see.
FURTHER: Wednesday, March 9th 2022, 12:49 pm - By: CBS News - reporting this was the first Jan. 6 case to go to trial.
FURTHER: Dallas News, (again, but a different earlier pre-trial item), late in the report, "FBI agents who searched his Wylie home found an unregistered silencer in
a gun safe, threaded to fit a .22-caliber firearm also in the safe,
court records say."
It is curious, as a combined weapon assembly, as to purpose and past use. If any. It is tempting to speculate that such a weapon combination could be related one way or another to when Reffitt "worked in the oil field industry for more than 18 years, including [but presumably not limited to] on
offshore drilling rigs in Kuwait, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia." It clouds things. Suggests things.
FURTHER: The FBI's and Justice Department's AFFIDAVIT IN SUPPORT OF CRIMINAL COMPLAINT AND ARREST WARRANT at its p.12, paragraph 31 states:
During the execution of the search warrant at REFFITT’s home, FBI agents located two firearms (among others): an AR-15 rifle and a Smith & Wesson pistol. On January 16, 2021, REFFITT stated to agents that REFFITT had brought the Smith & Wesson pistol on his drive from Texas to Washington, D.C., on or around January 6, 2021, but that REFFITT had disassembled it to comply with the law in Washington, D.C.
" . . . among others . . ."?
Arguably there was no cause to mention the safe, silencer and .22 pistol. Nothing in online info suggests the silencer and .22 pistol were not simply left behind in the safe during the Reffitt trip to DC. Presumably Reffitt anticipated no cause to have needed the .22/silencer for any purpose during his being in DC.
Nothing was found reporting Reffitt ever braged about or communicated with others about that .22/silencer he kept in his possession; not even in the context of the TTP security firm he envisioned, incorporated, and touted.
Reporting is a handgun was found by FBI search, bedside. Not stored otherwise; while the .22/silencer was secured all the while in a safe:
Reffitt was arrested less than a week after the riot. The FBI found a
handgun in a holster on a nightstand in the defendant's bedroom when
they searched his home near Dallas.
One must conclude that the .22/silencer were NOT kept as a personal defense weapon, easily within reach if needed against intruders.
WTF? Who is this guy? What's happening? Why that case as first to trial? Why no defense evidence/testimony after the prosecution rested?
FURTHER: What sentence might the DOJ seek, and how vigorously will they argue for it? What might they argue as the most decisive fact behind their sentencing recommendation?
FURTHER: Might the son, Jackson Reffitt, go into the witness protection program, new identity, new location, never again contacting family?
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