PITTSBURGH (TNS) — A former Army Ranger from Glenshaw was found guilty Tuesday in Washington, D.C., of assaulting police during the Jan. 6 riot.
U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden found Robert Morss, 29, an Afghanistan combat veteran, guilty on numerous counts after a short bench trial in which Morss and two others stipulated to a set of facts agreed upon by their lawyers and the government.
Morss was convicted of obstructing an official proceeding, assaulting police with a weapon and robbery. Two other defendants, Geoffrey Sills, 31, of Virginia, and David Judd, 36, of Texas, were also convicted on various counts.
All three men entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after attending a rally for then-President Donald Trump and violently confronted police in the lower terrace tunnel.
From 2:40 p.m., law officers maintained a line at the second set of glass doors inside the tunnel leading from the inaugural platform to the Capitol entrance. The police fought with a group of rioters there, including Morss, until about 3:19 p.m., when they cleared the rioters from the tunnel. Fighting continued throughout the afternoon.
Prosecutors said Morss joined the the crowd on the West Front of the Capitol grounds at about 2 p.m., wearing a vest designed to hold body armor. He also carried a knife sheath and scissors.
He moved to the front of the line of rioters squaring off with police, and then tried to steal a police baton from an officer. He also removed a bike rack fence from the control of an officer, leaving no barrier between the police and the rioters, and yelled to fellow rioters, “Take a look around. We are going to take our Capitol back.”
Morss then joined a line of rioters and pushed officers back. At 3:03 p.m., he participated in a “heave-ho motion” in which rioters rocked against the police line, prosecutors said. He wrestled a riot shield from an officer and passed it back into the tunnel to other attackers. He and others then created a shield wall against police.
Morss later joined other rioters in climbing through a broken window, entered the Capitol, took a chair and passed it to fellow rioters outside.
McFadden said he would sentence Morss Jan. 6. He has remained jailed since his arrest on June 11, 2021.
Morss had previously tried to get some of the counts against him tossed out, but Judge McFadden rejected his attempts.
Morss served three tours in Afghanistan and then worked briefly as a substitute teacher in the Shaler Area district.
He is among some two dozen people from the Western District of Pennsylvania and nearby accused of storming the Capitol in response to Mr. Trump’s repeated lies that the election was stolen from him.
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