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A federal judge in Washington, D.C., handed down a six-year prison sentence on Friday to a Virginia man for his participation in the Capitol riot. District Court Judge Amit Mehta emphasized that the jurors had an abundance of evidence supporting the conviction of Markus Maly on charges of assaulting police. Maly was indicted on February 9, facing a total of eight charges directly related to the events that unfolded on January 6, 2021.
Throughout the trial, the defendant consistently denied the allegations of using chemical spray against Capitol Police officers. Despite his denial, the court found sufficient evidence to hold him accountable for his actions.
According to The Epoch Times’ additional report, further details regarding the case can be found:
A Virginia man was sentenced on Friday for assaulting law enforcement on Jan. 6, 2021, with a chemical irritant, amid the breach of the U.S. Capitol that day.
Markus Maly, 49, of Fincastle, Virginia, received six years in prison, as well as three years of supervised release.
His prison sentence is significantly lower than the 15 years and eight months the Department of Justice had recommended.
A jury convicted Maly on Dec. 6, 2022, of all eight charges against him. The jury trial was overseen by U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee.
Maly has been jailed since then.
He was convicted alongside two co-defendants, Peter J. Schwartz and Jeffrey Scott Brown. The three were the first people convicted of assaulting police officers with chemical irritants on Jan. 6.
Maly said he had simply “occupied space” in the crowd and denied attacking and spraying police with any irritants.
“I went to a rally. That’s what I did,” he told the judge.
Mehta said the jurors had ample evidence to convict Maly of assaulting police.
“It’s not that you were there and ‘occupying space.’ It’s that you did these things and kept doing them that day,” the judge told him.
The specific six felony counts Maly was convicted of were interfering with police during a civil disorder; two counts of assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon; entering and remaining in a restricted building with a dangerous weapon; disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds with a dangerous weapon; and engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds with a dangerous weapon.
The other two charges he was convicted of include disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and an act of physical violence in a Capitol building or grounds.
Court documents and evidence presented by prosecutors at trial said that on the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021, Maly pointed and sprayed a chemical—possibly pepper spray—at a line of police officers while they retreated into a tunnel in an attempt to secure an entrance at the Lower West Terrace of the Capitol Building.
Maly also took a can of spray from Schwartz and gave it to Brown, and later joined a coordinated push against police before leaving the tunnel with a stolen riot shield, prosecutor Stephen Rancourt wrote in a court filing.
Rancourt said Maly lied on the witness stand when he testified that he only showed a cannister to Boyle but didn’t spray the officer.
“Maly claimed that the stream of liquid coming out of the canister was actually a piece of fringe on his hat. However, his hat didn’t have a fringe,” Rancourt wrote.
The judge, Mehta, sentenced Schwartz in May to 14 years and two months in prison, and sentenced Brown in April to four years and six months in prison.
Schwartz’s sentence was the longest for a Jan. 6 case before Mehta gave 18 years in prison to Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers militia group, making it the the lengthiest term among Jan. 6 cases to date.
Rhodes was convicted in 2022 of seditious conspiracy for his part in the breach of the Capitol.
In the 29 months since Jan. 6, more than 1,000 individuals have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, including nearly 350 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.
