Posted on 01/09/2024 9:10:43 AM PST by Red Badger
A man targeted by right-wing conspiracy theories about the U.S. Capitol riot was sentenced on Tuesday to a year of probation for joining the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by a mob of fellow Donald Trump supporters.
Ray Epps, a former Arizona resident who was driven into hiding by death threats, pleaded guilty in September 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 video conference and wasn't in the Washington, D.C., courtroom when Chief Judge James Boasberg sentenced him.
Epps' sentencing took place in the same building where Trump was attending an appeals court hearing as the former president's lawyers argued he's immune from prosecution on charges he plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost.
Fox News Channel and other right-wing media outlets amplified conspiracy theories that Epps, 62, was an undercover government agent who helped incite the Capitol attack to entrap Trump supporters. Epps filed a defamation lawsuit against Fox News last year, saying the network was to blame for spreading baseless claims about him.
Federal prosecutors have backed up Epps’ vehement 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 U.S. Marines from 1979 to 1983.
The ordeal has forced Epps and his wife to sell their property and businesses and flee their home in Queen Creek, Arizona, according to his lawyer.
“He enjoys no golf, tennis, travel, or other trappings of retirement. They live in a trailer in the woods, away from their family, friends, and community,” attorney Edward Ungvarsky wrote in a court filing.
The internet-fueled accusations that upended Epps' life have persisted even after the Justice Department charged him with participating in the Jan. 6 siege.
"Fear of demented extremists has no apparent end in sight so long as those who spread hate and lies about Mr. Epps don't speak loudly and publicly to correct the messaging they delivered," Ungvarsky wrote in a court filing.
Epps pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct on restricted grounds, a charge punishable by a maximum of one year behind bars.
Prosecutors recommended six months behind bars for Epps, who has worked as a roofer, a handyman, a farmer and a venue operator. His lawyer sought six months of probation without any jail time.
Ungvarsky says his client went to Washington on Jan. 6 to peacefully protest the certification of the Electoral College vote for Joe Biden, a Democrat, over Trump, a Republican.
Prosecutors say Epps encouraged the mob to storm the Capitol, helped other rioters push a large metal-framed sign into a group of officers and participated in “a rugby scrum-like group effort” to push past a line of police officers.
"Even if Epps did not physically touch law enforcement officers or go inside of the building, he undoubtedly engaged in collective aggressive conduct," Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Gordon wrote in a court filing.
Epps surrendered to the FBI two days after the riot after learning that agents were trying to identify him. He agreed to be interviewed by FBI agents as well as by the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 insurrection.
The government initially declined to prosecute Epps in 2021 after the FBI investigated his conduct on Jan. 6 and found insufficient evidence to charge him with a crime, according to Ungvarsky. Epps isn't accused of entering the Capitol or engaging in any violence or destruction on Jan. 6.
“Mr. Epps was one of many who trespassed outside the Capitol building. Through the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, most of those persons will never be charged,” the defense lawyer wrote.
More than 1,200 defendants have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 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 once served as an Arizona chapter leader for the Oath Keepers, but he parted ways with the anti-government extremist group a few years before the Jan. 6 attack.
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and other members were convicted of seditious conspiracy for plotting to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power from Trump to Biden after the 2020 election. Rhodes was sentenced last year to 18 years in prison.
Fox News hasn't responded to messages from The Associated Press seeking comment on Epps' lawsuit.
Probation and community service. Just what I expected. I knew he would not go to jail.
It’s the feds who ‘targeted’ him. The light sentence is just confirmation of what we all knew.
The judge is in on it.
If Trump wins and we get a de-Nazification committee, the judge needs to be one of the perps.
Epps and his cohorts were instrumental in promoting and encouraging protesters to storm the Capitol Bldg and gets a slap down. Epps testified under oath he never entered the Bldg when vids show him inside the Bldg. What about the people locked up in solitary confinement for 3 years who did nothing but follow Epps directions?
You can bet “community service” will be things like working at fund raising for the rats.
SPJN You Know What-ing.
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A man targeted by right-wing conspiracy theories...
...
The only J6er that’s a victim according to the swamp’s mouthpiece
Well this just reinforces the “ring wing” conspiracy theories.
One Year Probation, well THAT SUCKS!!!!
Silver Lining — poor Ray will have to spend the remainder of his MISERABLE LIFE jumping at every sound and wondering what’s hiding behind every blade of grass.
His well deserved Paranoia will drive him to insanity.
If this doesn’t confirm that Epps was a FED plant, then nothing will. Some people are so willfully blind that they can’t see what is staring them in the face.
They aren’t even pretending to be fair. They are taking care of this guy and they don’t really care how it looks. All the while, they are throwing regular people in jail for years on end.
They are emboldened because they know there will be zero response.
The article reads like it was a FBI press release.
For those who didn’t believe the ‘fix’ was in?
Here’s your proof...
Travesty of the highest order.
“MICHAEL “Karl Marx” KUNZELMAN....
DISGUSTING!!!
Does the article even mention that he was telling crowds to go into the Capitol building?
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