This artist sketch depicts Guy Wesley Reffitt, joined by his lawyer William Welch, right, in Federal Court, in Washington, Monday, Feb. 28, 2022. Reffitt, a Texas man charged with storming the U.S. Capitol with a holstered handgun on his waist, is the first Jan. 6 defendant to go on trial.
Dana Verkouteren | San Francisco Chronicle | AP
A federal jury on Tuesday convicted the first person to stand trial on charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol by a mob of supporters of then-President Donald Trump.
The defendant, Texas resident Guy Reffitt, was convicted of all five charges he faced in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
Jurors had deliberated for less than four hours before delivering their guilty verdicts on the two counts of civil disorder, and a single count each of obstruction of an official proceeding, entering restricted grounds with a firearm, and obstruction of justice.
“I don’t care if [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi’s head is hitting every stair as I drag her by her ankles, she is coming out,” Reffitt, 49, said in statements introduced as evidence by prosecutors at trial, where the defendant’s own son testified against him.
Reffitt was one of the thousands of Trump supporters who invaded the Capitol complex on Jan. 6, 2021, after weeks of false claims by Trump that he had actually won the 2020 presidential election, and that Democratic Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory was the result of widespread ballot fraud.
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