A January 6 defendant from Maryland — who, unlike the rally attendees and rioters arriving via air travel actually purchased a new truck that very morning and then drove to Washington, D.C. — has pleaded guilty to a felony criminal charge of assaulting police that, as outlined, carries up to 20 years in prison.
The defendant, Scott Miller, was identified by federal authorities as having been a member of the far-right group the Proud Boys, an organization that’s repeatedly been connected to incidents of political violence. Miller only arrived hours after the violence at the Capitol started and the building itself was breached, but he quickly joined attacks on police taking place in and around the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace tunnel. That area has come up repeatedly in Capitol riot cases, as a large number of physical assaults transpired in the partially confined space.
Miller “arrived by approximately 4:15 p.m.,” a federal press release says — and a little more than ten minutes following that point, he was beating police officers. Per that same release, he used a “long wooden pole” against officers and threw a series of objects, including “a metal pipe or pole, a bottle, a short wooden stick, a large black speaker, and an article of clothing.”
He also took a riot shield from police possession, passing it into the crowd. He admitted specifically to a charge of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers using a dangerous weapon, which comes with up to two decades of imprisonment, though a significant number of sentences for similarly positioned January 6 participants have been instead in the single digits (in years).
Notably, Miller’s plea hearing took place before Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, D.C. Chutkan is the same District Court judge who is also handling trial-level proceedings in the criminal case against former President Donald Trump over his schemes after the last presidential election to stay in power despite losing. Arguments before appeals judges on immunity claims from Trump that he wants to use to stop the case will take place on Tuesday.
