Top left: Jonathan Joseph Copeland. Bottom left, right: Copeland and other riders shove a Trump billboard at cops during Jan. 6 riots (DOJ).
A Jan. 6 rioter who helped shove a massive Donald Trump billboard toward a line of police officers defending the U.S. Capitol that day is slated to spend just shy of seven years in prison.
Jonathan Joseph Copeland, 29, of Lima, Ohio, was convicted of six felonies, including civil disorder and assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said in a press release. He was sentenced Monday to 71 months behind bars, followed by three years of supervised release. U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, also ordered him to pay $2,000 in restitution.
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“Copeland was involved in some of the most violent altercations at the Capitol on January 6th,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
Authorities say Copeland hitched a ride with someone he met online to travel to Washington, D.C., for Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally. After the rally, in which Trump urged his supporters to “fight like hell” as Congress certified Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral win, Copeland and thousands of others headed to the Capitol. He was among the rioters who broke through an unmanned barricade at the Peace Circle. They then walked over a second barricade and headed toward the West Front where “he and other rioters pushed a massive Trump billboard into the police line — assaulting the officers,” prosecutors wrote.
D.C. Metro Police Officer Sarah Beaver testified at Copeland’s trial about the danger the billboard, which had wheels “as big as your face or a little bigger,” posed to cops. Prosecutors described Beaver’s testimony in the sentencing memo:
Officer Beaver testified that she thought the sign was going to hit her neck, chin and head. Given the sign’s physical attributes, Officer Beaver did not want it to hit her or anybody else or to collapse on anybody, including the rioters. At one point, as the sign moved towards the officers, its wheels got caught in between the bars of the bike-rack barricade in front of the police line. This concerned Officer Beaver, because it could have lifted the fencing up and thrown the fencing into the police. She used her baton to try to push the sign backwards, but given its weight and force, her baton slid up the metal frame. Officers ultimately pushed the wheel back out of the fence and then tried to lift it up over the fence in order to take the billboard away from the crowd. While the officers were distracted by the sign, several rioters pulled away bike racks from the police line, making the outnumbered officers more vulnerable to the crowd.
Copeland then ventured inside the Capitol where he walked around as rioters clashed with cops. As he was in the building, the person who drove him from Ohio to Washington, D.C., called him and said “Son, you know what you’re doing is a crime.” Copeland then exited the building through a window.
Someone recognized Copeland’s face on the news and called the FBI. Agents interviewed him a few weeks after the violent, deadly riot.
“Copeland told FBI Agents that he felt remorseful, upon leaving the U.S. Capitol, so he deleted his accounts and disposed of his cellphone,” prosecutors wrote in the Statement of Facts outlining the basis for probable cause for an arrest.
At his trial, Copeland testified on his own behalf. He admitted to being at the Capitol but denied partaking in any assaults on law enforcement. But several videos and photographs from the riot proved otherwise. Prosecutors asked for a nine-year prison sentence. His attorneys asked for one year under home confinement, saying that Copeland regretted his actions that day and went to see Trump speak with no intention of partaking in a riot.
“Mr. Copeland is a peaceful man with loving friends and family,” his lawyers wrote. “He lives a blue-collar life, where he takes pride in his work, works hard, has a good reputation for being a hard, conscientious worker, and lives modestly.”
