Left: Ray Epps is seen talking with accused Jan. 6 rioter and Proud Boys member Ryan Samsel near the Peace Circle monument (via FBI court filing). Right: Epps is seen talking to another person in the crowd outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 (via police body camera footage/YouTube CBS News screengrab).
The Arizona man who pleaded guilty to participating in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol before finding himself at the center of a right-wing conspiracy theory says that he shouldn’t spend any time in jail.
James Ray Epps, Sr., 62, was seen in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6 participating in various activities in support of then-President Donald Trump, including attending the so-called “Stop the Steal” rally that proceeded the march on the Capitol building. At one point, he was seen talking with accused Proud Boys members who were part of the charge at the area known as the Peace Circle that resulted in at least one police officer suffering a head injury.
Hundreds of Trump supporters ultimately breached the Capitol as Congress had begun to certify Joe Biden’s win in the 2024 presidential election, bringing the certification to a temporary standstill and forcing lawmakers and staffers to either flee or shelter in place for hours.
The fact that Epps wasn’t arrested shortly after the riot — and that he was removed from the FBI’s Most Wanted list after reaching out to federal investigators himself — gave rise to the theory that Epps was a federal plant, sent to rile up the pro-Trump crowd and lead them into a “false flag” operation.
He pleaded guilty in September to a single misdemeanor count of disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds.
He is now requesting a sentence of probation, notably one “with conditions that may but do not necessarily include a firearms restriction[.]”
In a sentencing memo filed Sunday, lawyers for Epps criticized federal prosecutors for making allegations against Epps that are “grounded in inaccurate, sinister suppositions, perspectives, and inferences that present a misleadingly aggravated view of Mr. Epps’ actions than what he actually did.”
The defense memo paints Epps as someone who was fooled by reports from the news network favored by conservatives.
“With the receipt of multiple mail-in ballots arriving at his property for persons who did not live there, he observed potential irregularities himself, and he had absorbed the propaganda espoused on Fox News,” the memo says. “At that time, he understandably held concerns about the election’s accuracy.”
Epps’ mention of Fox News is notable, as former host Tucker Carlson amplified the rumors surrounding the elderly Trump supporter, who has since demanded an apology and sued the network.
Epps’ filing says that the government “exaggerates a belief by Mr. Epps” that leftist Antifa operatives were behind the violence at the Capitol that day — and notes that Epps is himself a target of repeated right-wing ire.
“He is the victim of a conspiracy theory, not the propagator of one,” the sentencing memo says. “On January 6 and in the months that followed, he knew that many of the people who were there that day and acting out were fellow Trump supporters. He never attributed the full violence to Antifa members … For a time afterward, as someone who believed in peaceful protest and saw non-peaceful agitation, he questioned how so many Trump supporters could be so wrong and thought there might also be left-wing persons amidst the crowd stirring the pot. Mr. Epps concluded long ago that any such thoughts were wrong, as he has reflected in statements made long after his congressional testimony and newspaper interview.”
Epps is indeed a changed man, according to the memo.
“Counsel makes clear what should already be clear: Mr. Epps does not believe the Antifa lies that were fed over the airwaves before and after January 6th (and that seem to be recurring as the 2024 Presidential election heats up),” the filing says. “President Trump and his supporters caused and were the participants at the January 6th riot.”
Federal prosecutors have requested a sentence of six months in jail, the statutory maximum penalty.
According to the defense memo, a term of jail is much too harsh of a sentence.
“All direct and inferential evidence support that, while present, Mr. Epps did not engage in violence,” the filing says. “The idea that Mr. Epps engaged in any act of violence toward the officers he was supporting is contrafactual to the full range of his behavior on January 6.”
Unlike other rioters who physically assaulted law enforcement and smashed Capitol building windows and furniture, all Epps did was encourage peaceful protest, his lawyer says.
“On January 5th, Mr. Epps spoke to some members of a group that had already formed at Black Lives Matter Plaza and encouraged them to go peacefully to the Capitol the next day,” the memo says. “He had no influence over them; they called him a Fed.”
The memo argues that Epps tried to suppress the group’s “irrational desire [to go] looking for so-called [Antifa] members and to cause problems for the police.”
He was similarly peaceful the following day, according to the defense memo.
“[A]t President Trump’s rally the next day, he encouraged others to go to the Capitol — intending in a peaceful way,” the filing says. “Folks were already planning to and heading that way. Others were similarly pointing out the direction of the Capitol. He was not leading. And he never advocated violence or anything close to violence.”
The defense emphasized the fact that Epps owed up to his prior beliefs and actions.
“Mr. Epps is honest, credible, and reliable in his accounts,” lawyer Edward J. Ungvarsky wrote. Epps, the defense memo says, “is viewed as a traitor and pariah by Trump supplicants who have ingested lies about him.”
Epps is scheduled to be sentenced before U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, a Barack Obama appointee, on Tuesday.
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