Jan. 6 Insurrection Anniversary: Where MI Cases Stand Today

MICHIGAN — Since supporters of then-President Donald Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol two years ago, more than 900 people, including 19 from Michigan were charged in connection to the riot.

A Southgate man received the harshest sentence of five years in prison so far after he was found guilty of entering the Capitol Building during the riot.

Former Michigan gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley was also arrested last summer after federal officials said he participated in the Capitol Riot.

In Michigan, the defendants are:

• Barnhart, Logan James, Lansing, pleaded guilty, waiting sentence.
• Boughner, Tim Lavon, Lapeer County, Arrested Dec. 7, 2021.
• Brown, Trevor, Michigan, Arrested July 1, Initial appearance held July 14.
• Caplinger, Jeremiah, Michigan, pleaded guilty sentenced August 1, 2023 to 35 days in jail, followed by 24 months of probation, 60 hours of community service, $500 restitution.
• Dresch, Karl, Calumet, pleaded guilty, sentenced to time served (6 months) and restitution of $500.
• Fox, Michael Joseph, Wixom, indicted Feb. 10, 2022. Arraigned March 15 where he pleaded not guilty to all counts.
• Herendeen, Damiel, Chesterfield, pleaded guilty, sentenced to 36 months of probation, including 14 days of intermittent incarceration, two months of home detention, $500 restitution.
• Jersey, Justin, Flint, pleaded guilty, waiting sentencing.
• Kelley, Ryan, Allendale, arrested June 9, 2022.
• Krol, Matthew Thomas, Linden, arrested Feb. 23, 2022.
• Kuecken, Deborah Anne, Detroit, arrested Oct. 27, 2022.
• Lints, Luke Michael, Traverse City, pleaded guilty, sentenced to 36 months of probation, including 90 days of home detention, 60 hours of community service, $500 in restitution.
• Puma, Anthony Michael, Brownstown, pleaded guilty, waiting sentencing.
• Schronak, Robert, Roseville, pleaded guilty, sentenced to 36 months of probation, including 28 days of intermittent confinement, two months of home detention, and $500 restitution.
• Sorvisto, Jeremy Ryan, Hancock, pleaded guilty, sentenced to 30 days incarceration and $500 restitution.
• Thurlow, Steven, St. Clair Shores, pleaded guilty, sentenced to 24 months of probation, 80 hours of community service, and $500 in restitution.
• Williams, Anthony Robert, Southgate, found guilty, sentenced to 60 months in prison, followed by 36 months of supervised release, $5,000 fine, $2,000 restitution.

The violent siege on the Capitol two years ago was an attempt to stop the certification of electoral votes declaring Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 presidential election. It resulted in the deaths of five people during or soon after the attack, including two Capitol police officers and one rioter. About 140 police officers from the U.S. Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police Department were assaulted in the attack, according to the Justice Department.

It was the first in U.S. history that the transfer of power from one administration to another was not peaceful. In a speech before rioters attacked the Capitol, Trump repeated the same claims he had been making in the two months since the election that it had been stolen, then urged his supporters to walk from the rally site on the National Mall to the Capitol.

Biden is expected to mark the two-year anniversary of the insurrection with remarks Friday in the East Room of the White House, according to a schedule released Monday by his office. The White House did not provide details, according to reports from The Hill and others.

In a blistering criticism of the insurrection last year, Biden did not mention Trump by name, but squarely blamed the “defeated president” for the attack he said raised global concerns about the future of American democracy.

During its sweeping nearly 18-month investigation, the Jan. 6 committee, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses, held 10 hearings and obtained more than a million pages of documents before releasing its 814-page report last month.

The panel came to the unanimous conclusion that Trump coordinated a “conspiracy” on multiple levels, pressuring states, federal officials and lawmakers to try to overturn his defeat, and inspired a violent mob of his supporters to attack the Capitol and interrupt the certification of Biden’s win.

Chairman Bernie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, called the final report a “roadmap to justice” for Trump, whose actions leading up to the insurrection were the nearly singular focus of the committee.

“Donald Trump lit that fire,” Thompson wrote in the committee’s final report. “But in the weeks beforehand, the kindling he ultimately ignited was amassed in plain sight.”

The committee’s criminal referral asks the Justice Department to consider charges against Trump related to inciting an insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a false statement and obstruction of an official proceeding. The referral is largely symbolic, and the Justice Department is under no obligation to comply with recommendations in the unprecedented referral.

Witnesses, who ranged from many of Trump’s closest aides to law enforcement officers to some of the rioters themselves, detailed Trump’s “premeditated” actions ahead of the attack and told the committee how his wide-ranging efforts to overturn his defeat directly influenced those who brutally pushed past the police and smashed through the windows and doors of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

In the months, weeks and days leading up to Jan. 6, “stop the steal” rallies built on the former president’s unsubstantiated accusations were held in Trump strongholds and swing states. The first was four days after the 2020 presidential election, on Nov. 7, 2020, at the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg, but other notable rallies were held in Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and North Carolina.

From Jan. 5-7, 2021, Trump supporters staged 39 “stop the steal” protests in their state capitals, according to a report from the Bridging Divides Initiative, a project of Princeton University

The attack promoted the most expansive federal law enforcement investigation in U.S. history. The FBI has offered a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to the conviction of those responsible for placing pipe bombs in Washington on Jan. 5, 2021. The agency is still seeking the public’s help to identify people pictured in 1,433 photos taken the day of the insurrection.

Less than half (335) of the cases have been adjudicated and the defendants have received their sentences, including 185 who have been sentenced to incarceration.

Among the most closely watched trials was that of Oath Keepers leaders Stewart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs, who were found guilty of seditious conspiracy — the most serious of the charges so far — in late November.

Three of their co-defendants were acquitted of the charge. Four other individuals have pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy charges, the most serious of those filed so far in the investigation.

Seditious conspiracy charges reflect the Justice Department’s belief that the Capitol breach was a grave threat to the operation of the U.S. government.

Under the rarely-used federal seditious conspiracy law, enacted after the American Civil War, charges are filed when two or more people plot to “overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the United States or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder or delay the execution of any law of the United States. …”

As the federal criminal cases continue, the FBI is continuing to ask the public’s help in finding others who participated in the attack, which cell phone technology made one of the most documented crimes in U.S. history. Many of the Justice Department’s cases have been built on video footage of the attack, social media posts, phone location data and tips from the public, and federal prosecutors say hundreds more cases could be filed.

Trials will continue this year and perhaps into 2024.

Read the Justice Department’s latest update on the Capitol breach.