An armed Texas militia member accused of leading a “vigilante mob” to breach the U.S. Capitol became the first Jan. 6 rioter to get convicted by a jury on Tuesday.
Forty-nine-year-old Guy Reffitt was found guilty of all five counts against him, including bringing a gun to the Capitol grounds, as part of a MAGA mob that stormed the seat of the government to stop the electoral certification of President Joe Biden. After the siege, Reffitt came home and threatened his two children to keep quiet about his involvement in the riots.
The verdict, which a 12-person jury reached in about three hours, marks the first prosecutorial success in actually taking a riot case to trial, sending a signal to the hundreds of other accused insurrectionists who have not taken plea deals in the deadly saga.
ADVERTISEMENT
“What’s probably going to happen is a lot of defendants are calling their attorneys asking, ‘What’s the possibility of the plea deal?’” Jessica Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University, told The Daily Beast. “I mean, who wants to take their chances with a jury and a judge after this verdict?”
Levinson noted that while Reffitt had damning and “unique” evidence against him, he was not even in the “epicenter” of the Capitol riots—and was still met with a “lightning fast” verdict.
“I can’t even imagine what that means for defendants accused of far worse crimes,” she added.
Reffitt is scheduled to be sentenced on June 8 and faces a maximum sentence of decades behind bars.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors alleged that Reffitt drove from his home in Wylie, Texas, because he wanted to “overthrow Congress” and drag lawmakers out of the building. Assistant U.S. Attorney Risa Berkower argued to jurors during closing arguments that an armed Reffitt proudly “lit the fire” that allowed other MAGA mobsters to overwhelm Capitol police officers and eventually breach the building.
“They were in an impossible situation—outnumbered and, they feared, outgunned,” Berkower said of the besieged security personnel.
Reffitt’s lawyer, William Welch III, actually did not contest the idea that his client illegally entered a restricted area, but said during closing arguments he did not assault officers and was simply a man who “brags a lot.”
Sure enough, video played during the trial showed Reffitt bragging about his interactions with police, including his describing a standoff with a female officer who fired a pepper ball at him. A member of the far-right Three Percenters who traveled with Reffitt also testified about their intentions to overthrow Congress by any means necessary.
Throughout the siege, Reffitt was also texting his family group chat, providing a play-by-play of his movements and, prosecutors said, his intentions to cause harm.
“I pretty much stood there in awe and disappointment, saddened and scared,” Jackson Reffitt, the defendant’s 19-year-old son who famously tried to turn his father into the feds, testified last week. “I was terrified. I believe we all were. For the people there, what’s going to happen—as well as at a loss of words.”
The teenager’s testimony helped paint a picture of Reffitt’s descent into right-wing paranoia—including what the teen said were threats on their family group chat about his intentions to overthrow the government. Last week, the younger Reffitt described his father as a pandemic-idled oil rig manager who had grown “most distant” after the family moved back to the United States from Malaysia—before ultimately joining a far-right militia group.
The growing radicalization, the teen said, prompted him to inform the FBI of his father’s plans in December 2020, even as he admitted to jurors it felt “gross” to look up how to submit a tip on his phone.
The teenager said that when Reffitt returned home from Washington after the riot, the patriarch threatened his two children to keep quiet about his involvement. Prosecutors said Reffitt actually went so far as to threaten to shoot his son and daughter if they became “traitors” and turned him in. Reffitt also allegedly told his daughter he would put a bullet through her cell phone if she posted about him online.
“He said, ‘If you turn me in, you’ll be traitors. And traitors get shot,’” his son testified, adding that before his father got arrested, he told him, “You’ll know that your father was there when an epic, historical thing happened in this country. And guess what? I’m not done yet.”
Supporters of Donald Trump hold a rally outside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
OLIVIER DOULIERY/OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)Welch, who did not call any witnesses, tried to explain away Jackson Reffitt’s testimony during his closing arguments, stating that the teenager was not a reliable witness because his sister did not take the stand to confirm his allegations.
“This case has been a rush to judgment, most of it has been based on bragging and hype,” Welch added.
U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nestler only had one thing to say during his rebuttal before playing videos of Reffitt describing the insurrection: “You know what he brags about? The truth.”
