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One of two men charged in the Jan. 6, 2021 chemical spray attack on three police officers at the U.S. Capitol, including Brian D. Sicknick, pleaded guilty to reduced charges Wednesday.
West Virginia sandwich shop owner George Tanios, 40, pleaded guilty to two counts of trespassing and disorderly conduct on restricted Capitol grounds, a reduction from an earlier 10-count indictment that included felony charges of rioting, assaulting law enforcement officers, and obstructing congressional certification. of President Biden’s 2020 election victory.
The guidelines call for a sentence of up to a year behind bars; he has already completed five months. He will be sentenced on December 6.
The case of Tanios and his co-defendant Julian Elie Khater is among the high-profile prosecutions of Jan. 6, as both men were accused of assaulting 42-year-old Capitol Police Officer Sicknick. Sicknick was injured while trying to contain a violent mob. the West Terrace of the Capitol, collapsing hours later and dying the next day of natural causes, officials said. Neither Tanios nor Khater are alleged to have caused Sicknick’s death.
In the deposition, Tanios admitted to bringing two cans of chemical spray to Washington and giving one to Khater before arriving at the Capitol. During the riot, according to the plea, Khater reached into Tanios’ backpack to retrieve a can of bear spray. Tanios later filmed other rioters fighting the police.
In a statement, Tanios’ assistant federal public defender’s attorney, Elizabeth B. Gross, said, “The parties here worked diligently to reach a fair and just resolution prior to trial. The proposed misdemeanor charges better reflect the limited actions of George Tanios on January 6, 2021, while standing outside the United States Capitol.
A signed plea agreement makes no mention that Tanios will cooperate with prosecutors, though he admitted in the plea documents that he “has no information to dispute or refute the allegations as set forth in the indictment against his co-defendant, Julian Khater, no way.”.
Khater is still to be arraigned on October 5. In court, attorneys said they were debating whether Khater would agree to plead guilty to two counts of assaulting a law enforcement officer with a dangerous weapon.
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Khater and Tanios, who ran smoothie and sandwich shops in their respective college towns, were arrested in March 2021 and had pleaded not guilty to the assaults on Sicknick, a fellow Capitol Police officer and a D.C. constable.
Prosecutors in the detention hearings alleged that Khater deployed the spray at close range against Sicknick, U.S. Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards and a D.C. police officer identified as B. Chapman of the police line, incapacitating them.
“Give me that bear…” Khater allegedly told Tanios in a video recorded nine minutes earlier, at 2:14 p.m. on the lower west terrace of the Capitol, where Sicknick and other officers stood guard behind the racks of metal bikes, he said. loading papers
“Wait, wait, not yet, not yet… it’s still early,” Tanios allegedly replied.
Tanios’ attorney has argued that he was 30 feet from Khater when he sprayed the officers and did not aid or abet any crime.
Sicknick had two strokes after his time at the Capitol that day, officials said. The medical examiner said an autopsy found no evidence that Sicknick had suffered an allergic reaction to chemical irritants. There were also no signs of internal or external injuries, the medical examiner said.
Khater has been jailed since then, but an appeals court in August ordered Tanios’ release, saying he had “no convictions for serious crimes, no ties to any extremist organization and no criminal behavior after January 6 that, in any other way, he showed him a danger to the community”.
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United States District Judge Thomas F. Hogan had previously ordered the two men held pending trial, saying government videos of the assaults on the three officers showed a degree of premeditation and future dangerousness.
“These two gentlemen are respectful and respected people in the community, and it’s very difficult for the court to come to this conclusion, but they still committed this attack on uniformed police officers. I see no way around this,” Hogan said in that moment.