Federal prosecutors are asking for a sentence of 24 and a half years in prison for Peter Schwartz, a participant in the attack on the Capitol in 2021 who, while there, helped with the usage of chemical irritants against police and joined in the mob’s assault on law enforcement in the Lower West Terrace tunnel, where Daniel Hodges of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department was infamously crushed.
The sentence, if imposed, would be the longest given to any rioter. In a memo filed by the prosecution ahead of sentencing, prosecutors focused on the lengthy criminal history Schwartz has, a record that spans across decades and includes what are apparently over three dozen convictions, a significant portion of which reflect violence, including past violence against police. It’s ultimately up to the judge to decide the length of time Schwartz will actually spend in jail after his conviction on all counts late last year.
Schwartz originally participated in the Capitol riot along with a woman named Shelly Stallings, who was his wife but from whom he has evidently since separated, per prosecutors. He claimed in a defiant interview after his trial was over that he’d simply been trying to protect Stallings with aggressive actions he took at the Capitol, although it seems much of what he did had absolutely nothing to do with her, and his past convictions include a 2020 case in which he assaulted Stallings.
At the Capitol, he both used chemical irritants against officers and helped distribute such irritants to other members of the mob. He was also evidently in the tunnel as Hodges was pinned with a stolen riot shield, infamously screaming in pain in a moment captured on widely distributed video. The man holding that riot shield stolen from police was recently sentenced to seven and a half years in prison, with members of his family having credited the influence of his father in leading him to his actions that day.
Prosecutors also highlighted Schwartz’s apparent lack of remorse, which he’s expressed following his trial as well as in comments before the proceedings. “Even now, more than two years later, he has demonstrated zero remorse for his conduct, giving repeated interviews from the D.C. Jail claiming that he is a completely innocent victim of a biased prosecution and has done nothing wrong,” the memo said. There is also a crowdfunding site that was established where tens of thousands of dollars were raised on Schwartz’s evident behalf, and prosecutors wanted a fine equaling what accumulated there. If he’s being held in the D.C. jail, then it seems Schwartz was among the detained rioters Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) was so eager to defend on the occasion of a recent trip there.
