A Capitol rioter who smoked marijuana in the building during the violence has now been ordered to remain in jail ahead of his trial. The rioter, Ronnie Sandlin, faces an array of serious federal criminal charges, including over physically assaulting law enforcement personnel who were on the scene that day. Sandlin is also accused of obstruction of an official proceeding, which carries a consequence of up to 20 years in prison, if convicted — so his situation is clearly serious. In rejecting Sandlin’s attempt to get out of custody ahead of his trial, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals noted that “he’s not only accused of violence that day, but also of trying to evade law enforcement afterwards,” reporter Zoe Tillman summarized.
Another unsuccessful pretrial detention challenge in the Jan. 6 cases — DC Circuit upholds order keeping Ronnie Sandlin in jail, noting he's not only accused of violence that day, but also of trying to evade law enforcement afterwards.
Charging docs: https://t.co/SIGCq5uwPK pic.twitter.com/tptJ6LV4at
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) July 9, 2021
Interestingly, Sandlin — who has ties to at least a few communities — does not appear to have voted in last year’s presidential election. Although the contents of particular individuals’ ballots are secret, whether or not someone voted at all is information that’s (generally speaking) often available publicly, and a Las Vegas-area CBS affiliate reported in February that “no community where Sandlin is known to have resided, including Las Vegas, can find a record of him voting this past presidential cycle.” Sandlin lived at one point in the area of Long Beach, California, before moving to Nevada and then spending around several months with his parents in Memphis, Tennessee — and no records of him voting emerged from any of these locales.
Meanwhile, he’s not the only rioter who is remaining in custody ahead of their trial. Recently, Jacob Chansley — who has come to be known as the “QAnon shaman,” in reference to the QAnon conspiracy theory — also lost an attempt to get out of jail. He’d requested to be allowed to wait for his trial at a “secure location” with family members in Arizona, but little information about these arrangements was provided to the court. Federal Judge Royce Lamberth, who was handling the proceedings, refused to agree to a release arrangement that hadn’t even been fully explained.
