WASHINGTON — A federal jury on Friday convicted a QAnon believer in the Jan. 1 pursuit of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman. On June 6, 2021, the defendant was found guilty of all charges against him.
Iowa man Doug Jensen, one of the first 10 thugs to enter the Capitol during the riots, went on trial this week and was found guilty of seven counts, including felony charges of civil unrest , and charges of assaulting, resisting or obstructing a police officer.
Sentencing is scheduled for December. 16. Jensen’s wife, April, cried as the verdict was read.
Jensen has been in pretrial detention since last year. He was released in a high-intensity pre-trial program, but after he breached the conditions of his release, he aired an event hosted by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who had promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, so The judge again ordered him to be detained.
On Jan. 6, Jensen filmed video from the bottom of the Capitol, where he announced — inaccurately, but confidently — that he was in the White House. “Attack the White House! That’s what we’re going to do!” There are Say in a video.
The government and Jensen’s defense team delivered closing arguments Friday, before a jury of 10 men and two women began deliberations in the afternoon.
Prosecutors argued that Jensen, determined to prevent a peaceful transfer of power, “was a thug who wouldn’t back down.”
“Every obstacle he faced that day, he was ready to overturn,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Hawa Arlin Levinson Mirrell. He climbed over a 20-foot wall to the Capitol, inhaled a cloud of pepper spray “like oxygen”, and crossed the police line.
Goodman, the USCP officer who testified at Jensen’s trial, “had no backing” when he confronted the mob, Mirrell said. The mob “led by the accused” did not withdraw despite authorities’ demands.
“That’s not a game of following the leader,” Mirrell said. Jensen was “using the thugs as weapons.”
In his final statement, Jensen’s attorney Christopher Davis described his client as a “lost man” and a “lone wolf” obsessed with the QAnon conspiracy theory. The pandemic “does very strange things to people,” and “obviously, Mr. Jensen is one of them,” he said.
Davis said it took his client about 24 hours to figure out that he was in the Capitol, not the White House, adding, “It shows how confused and confused his mind is.”
He argued that his client did not hit anyone and denied that Jensen was involved in some of the chaotic scenes on the scaffolding that prosecutors allege.
The government has tried to dismiss those defenses in a rebuttal. Prosecutors have argued that physical contact is not required by law when assaulting officers, and that if Jensen was really confused, he wouldn’t be able to get so close to Vice President Mike Pence during the unrest. “It’s not going to happen because of chaos,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Allen said.
More than 850 people were arrested and more than 350 convicted in connection with the Capitol attack.
This week, the FBI arrested five people linked to the far-right America First movement, and a judge also sentenced a former Army reservist and Adolf Hitler fanatic to four years in prison for storming the Capitol.
Zoe Richards contributed.