WASHINGTON — After the 2020 election defeat, Donald J. Four members of the far-right Oath Keepers militia were found guilty of treason on Monday for trying to keep Trump in office, nearly two months after the group’s leader, Stewart Rhodes. was He was convicted of the same offense in a separate trial in November.
A jury in federal district court in Washington found all four defendants guilty of two separate conspiracy counts.
The defendants – Roberto Minuta, Joseph Hackett, David Moerschel and Edward Vallejo – first accused Mr. Rhodes and other members of the group were indicted. However, due to congestion in the courtroom, the hearing of the case by Judge Amit B. Mehta was adjourned as a separate hearing.
The jury returned the verdict after about 15 hours of deliberations over three days, and it came as a parallel sedition trial for members of another far-right group, the Proud Boys, who joined the mob outside the Capitol on Jan. 6. He continued to play In the same court.
An earlier trial by members of the Oath Guard had a more mixed result, with two of the five defendants, Mr. Rhodes and longtime associate Kelly Meeks were found guilty of treasonous conspiracy, the most serious charge. The jury in the earlier case was Mr. Rhodes was acquitted of two separate conspiracy charges.
The government portrayed the defendants in the second trial as lower in the organization’s hierarchy of authority than in the first case, and more easily recruited as subordinates of the group than as high-level operational coordinators.
On the day of the riot, Mr. Hackett and Mr. Morschel joined a group of 12 as “boots on the ground” and forced their way into the Capitol on Jan. 6 with “brute force,” prosecutors argued.
New York tattoo artist Mr. Minuta followed briefly with a separate group that aggressively clashed with Capitol Police officers inside. Earlier that day, Mr. Minuta and his team, Mr. Former Trump adviser Roger J. They offered protection to Stone Jr. and rushed to the Capitol in golf carts to join comrades and confront police officers.
A soldier from Arizona, Mr. Prosecutors described in Rule of Law how he tracked down an arsenal of guns stashed in a hotel in Vallejo, Virginia.
