Background: Michael Tyler Roberts emerges on top of officers inside a tunnel and begins grappling with them at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2024. Inset: Michael Tyler Roberts outside of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2024. (Photos provided by U.S. Justice Department.)
For his assault of police officers that lasted three minutes inside the Lower West Terrace tunnel of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Michael Tyler Roberts, a pipefitter and mechanical supervisor from Tennessee, has pleaded guilty.
The plea agreement was announced by the Justice Department on Monday.
Some of the worst violence to unfold on Jan. 6 occurred inside of that tunnel where officers were forced to squeeze into the narrow corridor shoulder to shoulder and back to back to block entry. They were pelted with flying projectiles thrown from the crowd, jabbed with weapons, sprayed with irritants and often endured blow after blow by rioters who would scale and then crowd-surf to force their way inside the tunnel as far as they could get.
On Jan. 6, Roberts, 34, was one of those rioters. Prosecutors say he hoisted himself up to body-surf the crowd, and then began grappling with police, grabbing at their hands and arms as they desperately worked to fend him and others off.
Roberts was first indicted by a grand jury in November 2023 and beyond the assault charge, he faced five other counts including knowingly engaging in an act of physical violence within the U.S. Capitol, knowingly engaging in disorderly and disruptive conduct within the U.S. Capitol, knowingly intending to impede and disrupt government business, and civil disorder meant to interfere with law enforcement officers.
By pleading guilty to the assault charge, all other charges were dropped.
Prosecutors say that when Roberts came to Washington, D.C., he was mission-driven and his statement of offense shows that while he was on the Capitol grounds as rioting raged he was interviewed and boasted:
Our country is worth fighting for every day until this election is over and Donald J. Trump is put back in that White House, 100% and definitely … Man, this isn’t just a fight for Donald Trump. This is a fight of good versus evil, right versus wrong.
I love my country. I had to tell my son before I left home, ‘Listen son, I’m doing this for you. Daddy may not come home.’ But that’s okay. I’ll stand in the gap so he doesn’t have to. So your kids don’t have to. I’ll take whatever comes.
A few days later on Jan. 10, 2021, prosecutors say Roberts texted with Ronald Colton McAbee, a friend and former Tennessee sheriff’s deputy who wore brass knuckle gloves to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and, as Law&Crime reported, punched one officer and then assaulted another. McAbee was convicted by a jury in October 2023 and sentenced in February to 70 months, or just under six years, in prison.
Michael Tyler Roberts, wearing a red MAGA sweatshirt, is seen climbing over rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Inset: Roberts being interviewed on Capitol grounds on Jan. 6. (Images via FBI court filing.)
McAbee saw Roberts’ interview on Jan. 10, 2021, according to prosecutors and texted him about it.
Roberts replied: “It’s just me” and then he told McAbee he “wasn’t in the building.”
“I was just exercising my 1st Amendment,” Roberts added.
“Trump will be the one inaugurated,” he wrote.
Roberts will be sentenced on Dec. 6 by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, an appointee of former President Barack Obama. Roberts faces up to eight years in prison.
According to his plea agreement, he did not have a criminal background prior to Jan. 6.
An attorney for Roberts did not immediately respond to request for comment.
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