U.S. Capitol rioter who said he followed Trump’s orders found guilty
By Jan Wolfe
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A jury on Thursday convicted an Ohio man who claimed he was following former President Donald Trump’s orders when he looted objects from U.S. Capitol throughout final 12 months’s riot, handing one other notable win to prosecutors.
A federal jury within the District of Columbia discovered Dustin Thompson, 38, responsible on all expenses he confronted, together with obstruction of an official continuing and theft of presidency property.
Thompson had admitted to getting into the Capitol and stealing a bottle of liquor and a coat rack through the riots.
However in a novel authorized technique, Thompson argued to the jury that he was performing at Trump’s behest and that the previous president is in the end accountable for the mob that stormed the Capitol.
“Moreover being ordered by the president to go to the Capitol, I don’t know what I used to be considering,” Thompson advised the jury, in keeping with CNN. “I used to be caught up within the second.”
U.S. District Choose Reggie Walton, who oversaw the trial, will sentence Thompson at a listening to in July. The decide ordered Thompson detained in jail till that listening to.
The U.S. Justice Division has now received all three Jan. 6 prosecutions which have gone to a jury trial. One defendant was acquitted in a non-jury trial.
About 800 individuals have been charged with crimes regarding the Jan. 6 assault.
(Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Modifying by Alistair Bell)
