BOISE, Idaho — Six Idaho residents have been charged in the 2021 U.S. Capitol riot, which left five people dead, approximately 135 police officers injured and an estimated $1.5 million in damages.
The attack began the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021 when scores of supporters of former president Donald Trump stormed the Capitol Building, clashing violently with Capitol Police and smashing their way inside in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election, which current President Joe Biden won by more than seven million individual votes and 74 Electoral College votes.
The breach interrupted the electoral count, with rioters threatening Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and erecting gallows to lynch then-vice president Mike Pence. The attempted coup was unsuccessful, and the certification process continued after law enforcement regained control of the building, ultimately confirming Biden as the victor.
Many of those charged in the events of Jan. 6 - including a number of the Idaho defendants - recount having believed falsehoods about voter fraud and the 2020 election having been "stolen." In fact, exhaustive bipartisan investigations found no evidence of widespread fraudulent voting or ballot tampering anywhere in the U.S.
Here are the statuses of each of their cases:
Josiah Colt
Josiah Colt of Meridian was the first Idaho resident to be charged in the Capitol coup and the first to plead guilty. The 35-year-old was arrested after bragging online about joining the riot and being photographed dangling from a balcony in the evacuated Senate chamber and later sitting in a chair in the chambers reserved for Pence.
In an interview with KTVB following his arrest, Colt said he had not hurt anyone at the Capitol and was sorry for his role in the siege. He pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding - a felony - in July 2021.
Colt was sentenced on May 10, 2023 to 15 months in prison in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Judge Dabney L. Friedrich also ordered three years of supervised release after his incarceration, and ordered him to pay $1,000 in restitution and a $100 special assessment fine.
Duke Wilson
The second Idahoan to plead guilty in the sprawling criminal case, 68-year-old Duke Wilson of Nampa was sentenced to more than four years in prison in 2022.
Wilson admitted in September to assaulting a federal officer and obstructing an official proceeding in the failed coup. According to the FBI, he hit a police officer with a PVC pipe, punched and pushed others to the ground, and assisted a crowd in wrenching a riot shield away from an officer who was being overwhelmed by the rioters in the lower west terrace tunnel of the U.S. Capitol.
Wilson had been recorded on officers' body cameras and other clips uploaded to YouTube.
Pam Hemphill
Pam Hemphill, of Boise, was sentenced on May 24, 2022, to serve two months in federal prison and three years' probation as part of a plea agreement with federal prosecutors.
Senior Judge Royce Lambert of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday sentenced Pamela Hemphill for one misdemeanor count of demonstrating, parading or picketing in the U.S. Capitol Building. Three other counts were dropped under the plea agreement. In addition to jail time and probation, the judge ordered Hemphill to pay $500 restitution.
A video the prosecution played in court contains audio of Hemphill telling a police officer, "I have to get out of that crowd," adding that she had surgery and was a journalist. The officer had her stand in a safer area.
Moments later, Hemphill is heard saying to people in the crowd, "You just come in. That's all you do. This is your house, your house. Haven't you had enough with the (expletive)?"
"These are not the actions of a citizen journalist. These are the actions of a rioter," the prosecutor said.
When it came time to make her statement before hearing her sentence, Hemphill said, "I fully regret everything I said and did at the Capitol," adding that her intentions were to record what was happening, not be a part of it. She compared her actions to cheering on a team at a football game.
"Then the fans started going onto the field. I should have gone home. Instead, I was there filming chaos when I should never have left the stands in the first place," Hemphill said.
Yvonne St Cyr
Boise resident Yvonne St Cyr live-streamed herself inside the Capitol during the breach, recording the inside of senators' offices and other rioters breaking windows in the building. In an interview with KTVB, she said she had not meant to go inside and did not think anyone would be arrested for storming the Capitol.
She was charged with knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, both misdemeanors. St Cyr had been arrested in Boise the month before the coup for refusing to leave the Central District Health building during a protest about coronavirus precautions.
St Cyr was arrested on the federal charges in February 2021. She pleaded not guilty to both charges on June 16, 2022. She went to trial in March 2023; the jury found her guilty on all counts.
On Sept. 13, St Cyr was sentenced to 30 months in prison and three years supervised release.
"I understood what Jesus felt like when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane praying and felt so alone," St Cyr said in a Facebook video after the sentencing.
She also said she wanted to read a seven-page to U.S. District Judge John Bates, but that he cut her off after the fifth page and told her she only had one minute left to continue.
"It obviously irritated him," she said. St Cyr also said the prosecutors "wanted to paint their little narrative and their little lie."
Further in her video, she said after U.S. President Joe Biden was elected, she stopped filing her taxes.
"We went to war for this and so we quit filing. We haven't filed since 2019," St Cyr said.
Michael Pope
Michael Pope of Sandpoint traveled to Washington D.C. ahead of the riot along with his brother, a Kansas state man also facing federal charges, according to law enforcement. Pope was recorded inside the building on news broadcasts and on a Facebook video taken just outside the Capitol in which his brother introduces him by full name while pointing the camera at his face.
Pope turned himself in on Feb. 12, 2021. He is charged with felony counts of obstructing or impeding official proceedings and civil disorder as well as misdemeanor counts of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, impeding passage through the Capitol grounds or buildings, and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.
His next status conference is set for May 12, 2023.
Tyler Tew
Tyler Tew of Idaho Falls was taken into custody after someone who knew him tipped off the FBI. According to law enforcement, Tew posted about the attack on the Capitol on Facebook and was recorded on body cameras and other video entering the Capitol and later being pepper-sprayed by officers near the north door.
Tew is believed to have deleted incriminating messages and photos related to the breach, according to an indictment, but some of the data - including selfies taken inside the building - was successfully recovered. Geolocation data from Tew's cellphone also places him inside the Capitol, officials say.
Tew pleaded guilty on June 13, 2023, to four misdemeanor count: entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds (temporary residence of the president), disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds (temporary residence of the president), disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building. His sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 12, 2023. A trial that was set to begin on June 26 was canceled due to Tew's plea agreement.
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