Two oath keepers convicted of roles in January 6 seditious conspiracy

Two Oath Keepers militiamen convicted of seditious conspiracy were sentenced to several years in prison on Thursday for their role in a violent plot to disrupt the transfer of presidential power on January 6, 2021.

Sentences for the two members, Roberto Minuta and Edward Vallejo, were handed down in back-to-back hearings in Federal District Court in Washington. Mr. Minuta, a tattoo artist from New York and Texas, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. Mr. Vallejo, a retired Arizona military veteran, was sentenced to three years in prison plus one year of house arrest.

The sentences came a week after Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy in a separate trial. Kelly Meggs, one of Mr Rhodes’ lieutenants who was found guilty of the same offence, was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

In January, Mr. Minuta and Mr. Vallejo were found guilty of seditious conspiracy and other serious crimes at a trial involving two other members of the Oath Keepers, Joseph Hackett and David Moerschel. Mr Hackett and Mr Moerschel will be sentenced on Friday.

Judge Amit P. Mehta, who has presided over the Oath Keepers trials, ruled that sentences for Mr. Minuta and Mr. Vallejo should be slightly increased to reflect crimes considered terrorist acts.

But the judge said the relatively light sentences, much lower than those given to a few other individuals not charged with conspiracy in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, were sufficient given the two men’s minor roles in the organization. .

Mr. Vallejo was not at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, but instead settled into a hotel room in Virginia, prosecutors said, where he helped oversee an arsenal of heavy weapons as part of what the Oath Keepers called a “ rapid reaction force”. .” At trial last year, a former member of the group, Terry Cummings, testified that the stash of guns Mr. Vallejo was guarding was the largest collection of guns he’d seen in one place since his time in the military.

As chaos erupted at the Capitol, prosecutors said, Mr. Vallejo messages to his fellow Oath Keepers who breached the building, reminding them that his force was “equipped” and that they “just had to say the word” to bring it into action with two trucks he had kept on standby .

A day after the attack, he traveled to Washington to oversee and “examine the line of defense” of law enforcement officers at the Capitol, prosecutors said.

“Jan. 6 wasn’t enough for him, and that should put the court to rest,’ Louis Manzo, That’s what the prosecutor said Thursday. “He wanted more.”

Occasionally, Mr. Vallejo would burst into tears to Judge Mehta that his membership in the group had ruined his life during his twilight years.

“I wish I never connected with Stewart Rhodes,” he said.

Mr Minuta, who was sentenced earlier in the day, also drew a sharp distinction between himself and Mr Rhodes.

Prosecutors argued that Mr. Minuta was among a group of Oath Keepers who on Jan. 6 served as bodyguards for Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime adviser to former President Donald J. Trump. But he and the others heeded Mr. Rhodes’ call to descend on the Capitol, racing around law enforcement on golf carts and forming a military “stack” while wearing tactical gear.

“I reject the Oath Keepers as an organization; I was misguided and naive,” said Mr Minuta. “I am disgusted by Mr. Rhodes’ lack of remorse.”

Mr Minuta’s lawyer, William Shipley, called Mr Rhodes a “parasite” who marketed the group to politically dissatisfied people while using the Oath Keepers’ activities to generate revenue. He described Mr Minuta as a peripheral member with few connections in the group, and a “doctrinaire libertarian” drawn to Mr Rhodes’ charismatic persona in a moment of political fear and frustration with pandemic lockdowns.

At the hearing, Judge Mehta said Minuta’s frequent public predictions of impending civil war, in which he repeatedly expressed his willingness to die in battle, left little doubt that he had come to Washington prepared for violence.

“Immerse yourself in this founding tradition and violent insurgency and believe that the Second Amendment empowers individual citizens to take up arms to fight their government?” Judge Mehta said. “The law doesn’t allow that.”