Man from Ohio who claimed he was only “carrying out the presidential orders” of Donald Trump when he stormed the US Capitol was convicted by a jury who took less than three hours reject it novel defense for preventing Congress from confirming Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election.
federal jury on Thursday also found Dustin Byron Thompson, 38, guilty of all five of other allegations in his indictment, including the theft of a hanger from office inside the Capitol during the riot on January 6, 2021. maximum offer for the number of obstacles, the only felony, will be 20 years in prison.
jurors don’t buy Thompson Defense, in what he accused Trump and members of of inner circle of the president for uprising and for his own actions.
One juror who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymously said, “Donald Trump was not on trial in This business.”
Juror, 40-year“old man,” he said, left courthouse: “Everyone agrees that Donald Trump is guilty on the whole. Lot of people were there and then went home. Dustin Thompson didn’t.”
Thompson himself, having testified a day earlier, admitted that joined mafia attack and stole a hanger and a bottle of bourbon. He said he regretted his “shameful” behavior.
“I can’t believe what I did,” he said. “Small mentality and group I think very real and very dangerous.”
However, he said he believed Trump. false claim that the elections were stolen and tried to get up up for his. “If the president almost gives you an order to do something, I feel obligated to do it,” he said.
U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, who Thompson scheduled to be sentenced on July 20, characterized the defendant’s testimony as “completely hypocritical”, and his behavior on January 6 as “reprehensible”. Judge also blame in Trump direction after the verdict announced.
“I think our democracy in trouble,” he said, adding that “charlatans” like Trump didn’t care about democracy, only about power. “And as result of it’s tearing our country apart.”
Prosecutors did not ask for Thompson was to be apprehended immediately, but Walton ordered him to be held and he was led away in handcuffs. The judge said he thought Thompson was a getaway. risk and introduced danger to public.
Thompson’s trial was the third among hundreds of jurors. of Capitol Riot Cases Litigated justice department. in first two cases, jury also defendants convicted of all charges.
Assistant U.S. Attorney William Dreher said Thompson, a college-educated pest exterminator, who lost his job during the Covid-19 pandemic, knew he was breaking the law when joined the mob that attacked the Capitol and, in his case, plundered the Senate MP office. The prosecutor told jurors that Thompson’s attorney “wants you to think you have to choose between President Trump and his client.
“You don’t have to choose because this is not a trial of President Trump. this is the court for Dustin Thompson because of what did he do in the capitol on noon on January 6,” Dreher told jurors during his closing statements.
Attorney Samuel Shamansky said Thompson did not evade responsibility. for his behavior.
“This shameful chapter in our history it’s all on TV,” Shamansky told the jury. But he said that Thompson, unemployed and consumed by a constant diet of conspiracy theories, was vulnerable to Trump’s lies about stolen elections. He called Thompson a “pawn” and Trump a “gangster.” who abused it power manipulate supporters.
“The defenseless are seduced by the strong, and this is what happened here,” Shamansky said.
The judge barred Thompson’s attorney from calling Trump and his ally Rudolph Giuliani as witnesses. But he ruled that the jury could listen to the tapes of Trump and Giuliani speeches on January 6, before the riot broke out. Recording of Trump’s remarks were played.
Shamansky claimed that Giuliani, a Trump adviser and former Mayor of New York incited rioters, urging them to participate in “judgment of combatand that Trump provoked the crowd by saying, “If you don’t fight like damn you won’t have a country more”.
But Dreher told jurors that neither Trump nor Giuliani had the authority to “legitimize” Thompson’s actions at the Capitol.
juror who said on condition of said anonymously that he was “laughing under his breath” when Thompson testified that he took hanger so other rioters don’t using it’s like a weapon against police.
