Washington — A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Friday handed down a series of guilty verdicts in one of the first and highest-level prosecutions stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol .
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb found Ryan Samsel of Pennsylvania and four co-defendants — James Grant, Paul Johnson, Stephen Randolph and Jason Blythe — guilty on a range of charges related to the Capitol siege, including assaulting police.
The five men were accused by federal prosecutors of leading “the first breach” and “initial attack” on the Capitol on Jan. 6, when a mob of former President Donald Trump’s supporters tried to thwart the transfer of power. The group on trial was accused of forcefully removing a police barricade as the mob converged on Capitol grounds.
Prosecutors said Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, one of the first who tried to stop the group, was hit in the face a bike rack. The impact, they said, “threw her back and caused her to slam her head twice: first against a metal handrail, then against the stairs. She lost consciousness and suffered a concussion.”