Prosecutors Seek 25-Year Jail Term for Oath Keepers Founder Stewart Rhodes for Jan. 6 Role

The Justice Department’s recommendation for Rhodes came just hours after Judge Amit Mehta sentenced a Pennsylvania man to 14 years in prison—the most severe penalty issued in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021 assault to date—for attacking police at the Capitol with a chair and chemical spray. Prosecutors had recommended a more than 24-year prison term for the convicted rioter, Peter Schwartz, citing his “repeated violence against police on January 6th, his substantial violent criminal history,” and “his utter lack of remorse.”

The sentence topped the 10-year prison term Judge Mehta ordered in September for retired New York City police officer Thomas Webster, who was convicted of attacking a police officer at the Capitol. That prison term stood for months as the stiffest punishment in a case linked to the Capitol attack.

In a 183-page court filing, federal prosecutors Friday urged that same judge to apply an enhanced terrorism penalty for Mr. Rhodes and other members of the Oath Keepers who, in a pair of trials, were found guilty of seditious conspiracy, the gravest charge the Justice Department has levied in cases linked to the Capitol attack.

“Here, the need to deter others is especially strong because these defendants engaged in acts that were intended to influence the government through intimidation or coercion—in other words, terrorism,” federal prosecutors wrote. “And they were leaders of such efforts. Because these defendants not only contributed to the attack on the Capitol but helped to organize it, their sentences will be noted by those who would foment such political violence in the future.”

Federal prosecutors filed their recommendation a day after former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and three other members of the far-right group were found guilty of seditious conspiracy. In that trial, like the two previous ones involving the Oath Keepers, federal prosecutors argued that the far-right groups plotted in the weeks after the 2020 election to violently prevent the certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral victory and keep former President Donald Trump in power.

Mr. Rhodes and a top lieutenant, Kelly Meggs, were convicted in November of seditious conspiracy and both face sentencing on May 25. Their three co-defendants were acquitted of the seditious conspiracy charge but convicted of other charges, including obstruction of an official proceeding, which carries a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

Four other Oath Keepers members were found guilty in January of seditious conspiracy, in a trial that similarly highlighted the group’s role in the Capitol assault. In both trials, federal prosecutors presented evidence of Oath Keepers members advancing into the Capitol in a military-style “stack formation.” Prosecutors also accused the group of stashing weapons at a hotel outside Washington, D.C., for a so-called “quick reaction force” that wasn’t ultimately summoned into the nation’s capital.

In their court filing Friday, federal prosecutors recommended a 21-year prison term for Mr. Meggs and sentences ranging from 10 to 18 years for other convicted Oath Keepers. 

In a dramatic moment of his trial, Mr. Rhodes took the witness stand to testify in his own defense. Wearing his signature eyepatch, Mr. Rhodes sought to distance himself from his fellow Oath Keepers and denied that the group made advance plans to breach the Capitol.

Mr. Rhodes was on Capitol grounds but didn’t enter the building on Jan. 6, 2021, and on the witness stand, he testified it was “stupid” for his group’s members to have done so while Congress gathered to certify the 2020 election results.

Earlier in the trial, prosecutors showed messages in which Oath Keepers looked to Jan. 6, 2021, as a revolutionary occasion. Prosecutors also played recorded audio of a November 2020 conference call in which Mr. Rhodes said the group was “very much in exactly the same spot that the Founding Fathers were in like March 1775.”

“There’s going to be a fight. But let’s just do it smart and let’s do it while President Trump is still commander in chief and let’s try to get him to do his duty and step up and do it,” Mr. Rhodes said.

On Friday, prosecutors pointed to the Oath Keepers’ violent rhetoric in recommending significant prison terms for what they described as the group’s “central and damning role” in the Capitol attack.

“These defendants were prepared to fight. Not for their country, but against it. In their own words, they were ‘willing to die’ in a ‘guerilla war’ to achieve their goal of halting the transfer of power after the 2020 Presidential Election,” federal prosecutors wrote. “As a co-conspirator recognized, their actions made these defendants ‘traitors.’ ”

Write to C. Ryan Barber at [email protected]

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