The son of a famous right-wing activist has been found guilty by a federal judge at a bench trial of ten criminal charges stemming from his involvement in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The defendant’s name is Leo Brent Bozell IV.
The younger man stood accused by prosecutors of taking a very active role in the violence seen at the Capitol, bashing multiple windows and joining the group that chased U.S. Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman up a series of stairs right as the riot began to reach the inside of the Capitol building. Such was around the same time that members of the House and Senate, along with their various staff members, were still seeking shelter from the encroaching mobs. Federal authorities say Bozell entered the Capitol through one of the windows he’d helped shatter, allowing further access for rioters.
He was documented across a slew of locations inside the Capitol building, eventually entering an office for Nancy Pelosi and the floor of the Senate, according to recaps from prosecutors. Notably, his evident assistance towards other rioters in their own efforts to access the building was consistent, prosecutors said. “He proceeded to the Rotunda doors where he joined the rioters to force the doors open, allowing another flood of rioters into the building,” the Justice Department says in a press release about what the younger Bozell was doing after he left the Pelosi office. He was apparently at another point in a Senatorial meeting room and at another juncture on a balcony inside the Senate, where he pointed a C-SPAN camera there towards the ground.
Bozell’s charges include the felony offense of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers, and his prison sentence could be lengthy. Though there could be changes, his sentencing is presently scheduled for early next year, in January. Notably, his father is on record speaking against the Capitol riot, though he also supported claims about widespread problems in the 2020 election.
