Key witness in Oath Keepers prosecutions avoids prison sentence for Capitol riot role
FILE - Rioters storm the West Front of the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Georgia man who stormed the U.S. Capitol with fellow members of the anti-government Oath Keepers extremist group was sentenced on Tuesday to probation and home detention instead of prison — a reward for helping prosecutors in one of the most consequential cases arising from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.
Brian Ulrich pleaded guilty in 2022 to seditious conspiracy, which is the most serious criminal charge stemming from the attack on the Capitol by a mob of Donald Trump supporters.
Judges at the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., have continued to sentence Capitol riot defendants after the Nov. 5 election even though President-elect Trump has vowed to pardon Jan. 6 rioters once he returns to the White House in January.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta didn’t mention the prospect of mass pardons before he sentenced Ulrich to three years of probation with six months of home detention and 120 hours of community service. The judge said Ulrich deserves a “debt of gratitude” because his courageous acceptance of responsibility could help the nation “heal and move forward.”
“It shouldn’t be lost on this country that people were found guilty of seditious conspiracy,” Mehta said. “It is one of the most serious crimes that can be committed by an American.”
Ulrich, whose wife sat in the courtroom gallery, tearfully apologized to his family, the court and “the people of D.C.” before the judge announced his sentence.
Justice Department prosecutor Kathryn Rakoczy said many Americans have “moved on” from Jan. 6 while the judges and attorneys at the courthouse have spent years reliving the events of that day.
“I can understand why people would want to move on because it’s an ugly episode that no one wants to think about,” Mehta said.
Prosecutors asked the judge to spare Ulrich from a prison sentence. They cited his cooperation, including trial testimony, as grounds for leniency.
Ulrich, 46, of Guyton, Georgia, was arrested in August 2021. He pleaded guilty in April 2022 to two counts: seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding, the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress for certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.
In May 2023, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison for orchestrating a plot to keep Trump in the White House after he lost the 2020 presidential election. Juries convicted Rhodes and several other extremist group leaders and members of seditious conspiracy charges.
Ulrich is the first person to be sentenced after pleading guilty to seditious conspiracy in a Jan. 6 case.
Prosecutors alleged Rhodes and his followers recruited members, amassed weapons and set up “quick reaction force” teams at a Virginia hotel that could ferry guns into Washington, D.C. The weapons were never deployed.
Ulrich participated in encrypted chats by members who discussed using force to oppose the peaceful transfer of presidential power from Trump, a Republican, to Biden, a Democrat, after the 2020 election.
“Ulrich echoed Rhodes’ drumbeat about the need to use any means necessary, including violence, to stop the certification of the election, quipping, ‘And if there’s a Civil War then there’s a Civil War,’” prosecutors wrote.
After the riot erupted on Jan. 6, Ulrich and other Oath Keepers members maneuvered through the crowd outside the Capitol and breached the building. Police stopped Ulrich from advancing past the foyer just inside the East Rotunda doors, prosecutors said.
Defense attorney A.J. Balbo said Ulrich cut his ties with the Oath Keepers after the riot.
“His history shows that he has been a law-abiding individual throughout his life, a person who provided for his family and worked hard to realize his portion of the American Dream. There is no chance that Mr. Ulrich will ever pose a threat to the Republic again,” the lawyer wrote.
At trial, Oath Keepers leaders maintained that they never had a plan to attack the Capitol. But prosecutors said Rhodes and his followers seized their opportunity to disrupt the congressional certification of the Electoral College vote and sprang into action when the mob began storming the building.
“Ulrich testified that his actions on January 6 were directly linked to the implicit agreement he had entered into with Rhodes and other Oath Keeper members and affiliates to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power by any means necessary,” prosecutors wrote.
Ulrich wasn’t a government witness at the first trial for Oath Keepers leaders, including Rhodes, but he testified at a second trial against other group members who were convicted.
Three other defendants who cooperated in the Oath Keepers investigation have been sentenced. All three were sentenced to probation.
Rhodes, a Yale Law School graduate, founded the Oath Keepers in 2009 and built it into one of the largest far-right extremist groups in the U.S. The group largely dissolved after Rhodes’ arrest and conviction.
The Justice Department’s sprawling investigation of the Capitol riot also led to seditious conspiracy convictions against top leaders of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group. Its former national chairman, Enrique Tarrio, is serving a 22-year prison sentence that is longer than any other Jan. 6 case.
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