DOJ posts the official Ray Epps sentencing document, with photos of Epps on J6.https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.259850/gov.uscourts.dcd.259850.16.0.pdfEpps pleaded guilty via plea agreement, pre-indictment, to Disorderly or Disruptive
Conduct in a Restricted Building or Grounds, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1752(a)(2). See ECF Nos.4-5. The government’s recommended sentence is supported by Epps’
(1) efforts, both on theevening of January 5 and the day of January 6, to inspire and gather a crowd to storm the Capitolto protest the certification of the election;
(2) presence among the vanguard of rioters that overwhelmed police at three key breach points, which opened the floodgates to a mob that became thousands strong;
(3) presence and general assistance with pushing a large metal-framed sign intoa group of police officers holding a defensive line; and
(4) participation in a rugby scrum-likegroup effort to push past the same line of police officers. The Court must also consider that Epps’conduct on January 6, like the conduct of scores of other defendants, took place in the context ofa large and violent riot that relied on numbers to overwhelm police, breach the Capitol, and disrupt the proceedings.
This is a unique case in the context of January 6 defendants. Although Epps engaged infelonious conduct during the riot on January 6, his case includes a variety of distinctive andcompelling mitigating factors, which led the government to exercise its prosecutorial discretionand offer Epps a pre-indictment misdemeanor plea resolution.
Specifically, Epps:
(1) turned himself in to the FBI two days after the riot, on January 8, 2021, immediately after becoming awarethe FBI was seeking to identify him;
(2) cooperated with both the FBI and Congress, participatingin multiple lengthy voluntary interviews; and
(3) engaged in at least five efforts on January 6 to deescalate conflict and avoid violence between rioters and police officers.
2 He has also expressed what appears to be sincere remorse, see PSR ¶ 41, although he continues to speciously blame members of Antifa secretly posing as Trump supporters for the violence and property damage that occurred at the Capitol on January 6.
Finally, Epps has been the target of a false and widespread conspiracy theory that he was an undercover government agent on January 6 Here, after accounting for the aggravating and mitigating factors described above, the facts and circumstances of Epps’ crime support a sentence of six months of incarceration in this case.
More at link.
