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A Texas man described as a video editor for the Infowars website promoting conspiracy theories has pleaded guilty to attacking the U.S. Capitol, where he filmed the scene where a police officer shot and killed a California woman who joined a mob attack lens.
Samuel Christopher Montoya has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of marching, demonstrating or setting up a picket at the Capitol, and faces up to six months in prison.
U.S. District Judge John Bates is scheduled to sentence Montoya on February 14, 2023.
Less than a week after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack, the FBI received a tip from Motoya’s relative who claimed to have evidence he was at the Capitol near the Ashli​​ Babbitt shooting Inside.
A police officer shot and killed Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran from San Diego, as she climbed through a broken door leading to the Speaker of the House hall.
The FBI said Montoya, who described himself as “Sam of Infowars.com,” shot and narrated a 44-minute video showing him entering the building from the Capitol.
Montoya, 37, referred to himself as a “journalist” or “journalist” in the video but wore a red “Make America Great Again” hat and issued a statement celebrating the mob attack.
“We got our house back. We got the people’s house back,” he said, according to an affidavit from an FBI agent.
The affidavit said Montoya was believed to be the video editor of “Infowarsstore.com” when he appeared on the Infowars show hosted by Owen Shroyer two days after the riots.
The show featured a video of the riots by Bengu, who described to Schroyer what he saw at the scene of the Babbitt shooting.
Federal prosecutors and Capitol Police both cleared the officer who shot Babbitt of wrongdoing.
Montoya was arrested in Austin, Texas in April 2021. Shroyer was also arrested on charges related to the Congressional riots.
Shroyer claimed he worked as a reporter on January 6 and asked a judge to drop his rioting charges. Prosecutors countered that the First Amendment did not protect Schroyer’s actions at the Capitol that day.
About a year ago, the House committee investigating the attack issued a subpoena for documents and evidence from Infowars founder Alex Jones.
Jones has promoted unfounded allegations of election fraud by former U.S. President Donald Trump and urged his audience to join him at a Jan. 6 “Stop the Stealing” rally in Washington.
Jones was not charged with entering the Capitol with the mob.
In October, a Connecticut jury ordered Jones and his company Free Speech System to pay nearly $1bn (£870m) in damages to compensate the families of children and teachers killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Primary School massacre.
The families said Jones spread lies about the school shooting, which led to them being harassed and threatened.
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