A North Carolina man who helped lead the first attack on police at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was found guilty of multiple felonies and misdemeanors on Friday, prosecutors said.
James Tate Grant, a 31-year-old Cary resident, and four other men who were found guilty Friday led the first breach of the restricted Capitol grounds and the initial attack on U.S. Capitol Police officers, according to FBI criminal complaints against the men.
“Their attack paved the way for thousands of rioters to storm the Capitol grounds,” the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., said in a news release.
In a bench trial, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in Washington, D.C., found Grant guilty of civil disorder, assaulting an officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon and obstruction of an official proceeding — all felonies.
The weapon was a metal crowd control barrier, according to the FBI criminal complaint against Grant .
Cobb also found Grant guilty of committing an act of physical violence on the Capitol grounds and disorderly and disruptive conduct on the Capitol grounds, both misdemeanors.