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PHOENIX (AP) – The Idaho man, wearing a helmet, pictured swinging with one hand from the Senate balcony during the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol turned around six days later. While strapped into the vehicle that took him to Boise Jail, Josiah Colt made a video apologizing and expressing his shame for storming the building.
Jacob Chansley, the self-proclaimed QAnon Shaman who posed for photos on the Senate dais while sporting face paint and a furry hat with horns, also lacks the enthusiasm he once showed for the riot. A month later, he drafted a prison apology, asking for understanding as he learned of his actions.
Faced with convincing video and photographic evidence in court, dozens of rioters apologized and expressed regret as the consequences of their actions began to be felt. The ramifications include potential job losses, financial ruin and time spent behind bars.
“It’s going to have consequences for these people for the rest of their lives – and it should,” said John Flannery, former federal prosecutor and attorney for Capitol Hill.
Another possible consequence for Colt and others captured in photographs that went viral even before leaving the Capitol building: ignominy beyond their lives as these images make their way into the history books.
A lawyer for Dominic Pezzola, who authorities say is a member of the extremist group Proud Boys and smashed a window on the Capitol with a police shield, said in a file that his client’s imprisonment had placed his wife and two children in a predicament desperate financial.
Several workers at a flooring installation company run by Pezzola are also out of work because Pezzola is in jail, lawyer Jonathan Zucker wrote in a February filing calling for Pezzola’s release pending trial.
Pezzola, the lawyer wrote, was sorry for his actions, which included posting a video giving a triumphant speech inside the Capitol while smoking a “victory” cigar.
“Since his arrest, having time to reflect and see how things turned out, he now realizes that he has been duped into these mistaken beliefs. “That the election was stolen from President Donald Trump,” Zucker wrote.
Colt, who had expressed his devotion to Trump and called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a traitor, appeared to acknowledge the long-term consequences of his actions on Capitol Hill in the minutes leading up to his arrest as he spoke in the video., later posted by KBOI-TV.
“I never intended to do anything that would put a black eye on my family, my country, me,” he said, adding that he had received threats from dead.
Regret struck some rioters earlier than others.
The day after Chad Jones reportedly swung a flag pole at the police just outside the House bedroom, he told a friend he was an ‘idiot’, adding that he knew he was ‘in big trouble’ , according to court documents.
He was right. A week later, a federal complaint accused him, among other things, of using a weapon – the flagpole – to attack an officer. The charges carry a maximum of 60 years in prison.
Samuel Camargo, who posted a video on Instagram showing him fighting with the police trying to get through a Capitol door, was on Facebook a day later with his apologies.
“I’m sorry to all the people I disappointed because this is neither who I am nor what I represent,” he wrote. Camargo has also been charged.
It didn’t necessarily help her case. A judge ordered Camargo, who was arrested in Washington on the day of the inauguration, imprisoned until trial after concluding that no condition of release could secure Camargo’s future appearance in court.
As a procession of rioters found themselves before federal judges, some apologizing before arriving in court, it was impossible to discern who was genuinely sorry and who was expressing their contrition in a preemptive attempt at clemency from the part of the court.
From behind bars after his arrest in March and with an upcoming bail hearing, 18-year-old rioter Bruno Joseph Cua wrote a letter to his judge, assuring the court that he regretted and had been humbled by the experience. “The lesson is well received, Your Honor,” Cua wrote, according to court documents.
Two months earlier, Cua had posted enthusiastic notes on social media, claiming he had been part of history by joining crowds rushing to the Capitol, according to charging documents. He added in a sentence that jurors would likely consider an admission of guilt: “Yes, we physically fought to get in.”
Among the unpleasant awakenings: no plea is available yet, although they are in preparation. Given that this was an attack on what many see as the citadel of American democracy, the sentiment of prosecutors, judges and the general public, at least for now, is not really lenient.
Pezzola’s judge rejected his bail request, citing a potential danger to the community and saying Pezzola’s expressions of regret cannot now outweigh the evidence that he “was ready to play a significant role in a act of political violence ”.
To date, more than 300 Capitol Hill rioters have been charged. Several are accused of having carefully planned and coordinated the attack on January 6. Most are not accused of committing violence or damaging property, but of crossing security lines and entering restricted areas.
In most cases, there is little dispute that those charged violated the Capitol building, having themselves provided evidence in selfies and videos posted online.
Edward Jacob Lang posted a photo of himself among a crowd of Trump supporters making their way through a tunnel on the Capitol, beating police as they pass. He later bothered to put an emoji finger on the photo pointing to a blurry image of someone near the tunnel. The caption he included read: “THIS IS ME.” The photo was included in the January 16 complaint accusing him.
Some rioters, several of whom spoke through lawyers, said they followed the flow of the crowd and paid little attention to what they were doing until it was too late.
James Rahm said in a video statement before being charged that he knew the second he stepped through a door on Capitol Hill “the FBI was coming for me.” The 61-year-old said he was seized by the “passion of the moment”.
Psychologists have long observed how individuals in frantic crowds seem to lose their sense of individual responsibility and become ready to engage in antisocial behavior that they would never have considered on their own.
Courts are unlikely to allow lawyers to use crowd psychology as a defense at trial. It could be raised during sentencing to try to explain how those who had no previous criminal record ended up breaking the law.
Among the best-known figures of the Capitol Riot to apologize is Chansley, the so-called QAnon Shaman from Phoenix who stormed the building carrying a spear and expressed his disappointment with Trump, who had refused his request for forgiveness.
In his apologies, Chansley asked for patience for himself and the others who participated because they “had a hard time putting together everything that was happening to us, around us and through us.”
“We are good people who care deeply about our country,” Chansley wrote.
A month later, a judge who denied Chansley’s candidacy for release from prison questioned whether the Arizona man was still under Trump’s spell, noting that Chansley said in an interview with CBS ” 60 Minutes + ”that he did not regret his loyalty to Trump.
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Tarm reported from Chicago.
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