A Pennsylvania man convicted of felony assault and other crimes for pepper-spraying police officers outside the US Capitol was sentenced to 14 years in prison on Friday, the heaviest prison term ever for anyone convicted in the January 6, 2021 incident.
Peter J. Schwartz, 49, was convicted in federal court in December after evidence revealed that he was in the vanguard of a mob attacking police on the lower west terrace of the Capitol and boasted later that he had “started a riot” by “throwing the first chair.”
Prosecutors claim Schwartz then grabbed a police duffle bag full of pepper-spray canisters and distributed them to other members of the mob, including his wife, in order for them to be used against police officers.
Schwartz’s Arrest, Co-Defendants’ Convictions, and Wife’s Sentence
According to the government’s argument, Schwartz began pursuing down and pepper spraying any retreating officers he could find as he rushed through the crowd into the lower west terrace tunnel with a wooden club.
Schwartz, a welder by trade, was detained in his hometown of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in early February. On January 6, Schwartz and two co-defendants, Jeffrey Scott Brown, and Markus Maly, became the first three people convicted at trial of assaulting police officers with pepper spray.
Brown, of Santa Ana, California, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison last month. Maly, of Fincastle, Virginia, is waiting for his sentence. Shelly Stallings, Schwartz’s wife, was sentenced to two years in jail last month.
Potential High Sentence for Oath Keepers Founder
Schwartz was convicted on four counts of assault with a dangerous weapon and six other counts, including impeding an official procedure, entering a restricted building with a dangerous weapon, and engaging in physical violence in a restricted building. His 170-month sentence is more than the previous longest sentence handed down in a case related to the Jan. 6 incident, which was 10 years for assaulting a Washington police officer that day.
Schwartz’s sentence may be surpassed soon. The US Justice Department urged a federal judge on Friday to sentence Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes to 25 years in prison for his conviction on seditious conspiracy and other charges related to the January 6 violence.
Former President Trump’s Role and Defense Claim of Misunderstanding
On Thursday, a federal court jury found four members of the Proud Boys, another far-right extremist group, guilty of seditious conspiracy, which is defined under a Civil War-era law as a plot to use force to overthrow the government.
For their roles in the Capitol rampage by supporters of then-President Donald Trump, at least 950 people have been charged and more than 600 have been convicted. The attack on the halls of Congress on January 6 was the most savage since the British invasion of Washington during the War of 1812.
In a rally that day, Trump urged his supporters to “fight like hell” to prevent congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory, a campaign the Republican President has falsely claimed was stolen by major fraud.
Schwartz’s attorneys pleaded for mercy, claiming that their client and his wife came to Washington to hear Trump’s speech and walked to the Capitol with other demonstrators without meaning to incite violence. According to court filings, Schwartz’s activities that day “were motivated by a misunderstanding as to the facts surrounding the 2020 election.”