A former member of the anti-government Oath Keepers was sentenced to probation Tuesday after serving as a key witness for prosecutors in high-profile instances arising from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol assault.
Georgia man Brian Ulrich pleaded responsible in 2022 to seditious conspiracy — plotting to make use of pressure to oppose the authority of the U.S. authorities. It is essentially the most severe cost to emerge from the riot, the place supporters of President-elect Trump stormed the Capitol as Congress licensed the win of his Democratic opponent, President Biden.
U.S. District Choose Amit Mehta sentenced Ulrich to 3 years of probation with six months of house detention and 120 hours of neighborhood service, suggesting Tuesday he is owed a “debt of gratitude” for having the braveness to simply accept duty and assist the nation “heal and move forward.”
Prosecutors stated in court docket papers that Ulrich supplied “substantial assistance” to the federal government in its prosecution of different Oath Keepers, asking the choose for a sentence that included no jail time. Ulrich is the primary individual to be sentenced after pleading responsible to seditious conspiracy in a Jan. 6 case.
Forward of Jan. 6, the Oath Keepers plotted to cease the certification of the 2020 presidential election in encrypted chats, prosecutors alleged.
“Ulrich echoed Rhodes’ drumbeat about the need to use any means necessary, including violence, to stop the certification of the election, quipping, ‘And if there’s a Civil War then there’s a Civil War,'” prosecutors wrote, referencing Oath Keepers chief Stewart Rhodes.
Although by no means used, the group stashed a cache of weapons at a Virginia lodge that may very well be transported into Washington, D.C., and established “quick reaction force” groups. At trial, a number of Oath Keepers argued that they by no means deliberate to assault the Capitol, however prosecutors stated they seized on the second.
Rhodes was convicted by a jury of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 18 years in jail for orchestrating the plot. A number of different extremist group leaders, together with different Oath Keepers, had been convicted of sedition.
Ulrich didn’t testify in Rhodes’s trial — the primary for Oath Keepers leaders — however he did take the stand at a second trial in opposition to different members of the group who had been convicted. His legal professional stated in court docket filings he distanced from the group after the riot.
Rhodes based the Oath Keepers in 2009, and it ballooned into a significant extremist pressure within the U.S. Nevertheless, his jailing virtually dissolved the group.
Three different former Oath Keepers who cooperated with the federal government have additionally been sentenced to probation.
The Related Press contributed.
