The appeal, filed in federal court in Washington, DC, calls on Louis Enrique Colon of Missouri to plead guilty and cooperate with prosecutors. Colon admitted to crossing police barricades during the uprising before climbing a wall to gain access to a higher level of the Capitol. While inside the Capitol building, Colon used his hands and a chair to prevent police officers from trying to lower the folding doors to stop the rioters from entering the building. The bomber struck shortly after noon in front of a Trump-led rally near the White House, urging thousands of people to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell” as both houses of Congress convened to certify Joe Biden’s victory. of Trump in the 2020 election.. Biden’s victory was confirmed in the early hours of the next day, after lawmakers, staff and journalists fled to save their lives during the deadly Capitol Uprising. Colon, 45, was indicted in February 2021, along with four other members of the Proud Boys’s Kansas City Subway Division. He is the first defendant in this case to plead guilty. A judge had imposed conditions on Colon while he was awaiting trial. Colon will be sentenced later this year and faces a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of up to $ 250,000. He will probably be given a reduced sentence due to his acceptance of responsibility and cooperation. Colon was not charged in the same conspiracy with Enrique Tarrio, the former president of the Proud Boys and one of the top scorers out of the 800 people facing criminal charges in connection with the uprising. Colon’s appeal comes two weeks after Proud Boys leader Charles Donohoe pleaded guilty to obstructing a formal process and attacking and obstructing police officers. In a separate criminal case, meanwhile, one of dozens of police officers injured during the uprising testified Wednesday that he did not punch or fight a retired New York City police officer accused of assaulting a police officer. Thomas Webster, whose trial for assault began this week, claims he was acting in self-defense when he confronted Metropolitan Noah Rathbun police officer outside the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Rathbun said he reached out with an open left hand and pushed Webster in the face after the New Yorker pushed him on a bicycle rack. Rathbun said he was trying to move Webster behind a security perimeter that officers were struggling to maintain behind rows of bicycle racks. “It is unfortunate to be in the nation’s capital and to be treated like that by another citizen,” Rathbun said during the second day of Webster’s trial. Prosecutors’ videos show Webster pushing a bicycle rack into Rathboun before waving a flagpole at the officer with a downward motion, hitting a metal roadblock in front of the officer. After Rathbun grabbed the broken pole and retreated, Webster attacked the officer and threw him to the ground. Rathbun said he began to choke and could not breathe when Webster grabbed his gas mask and the chin strap pressed against the policeman’s neck. Separately from the hundreds of prosecutions, a special committee in the House of Representatives is investigating any links between Trump, his White House team, congressional Republicans and the insurgency.
