SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The five Northern Californians accused of crimes related to the attack on the U.S. Capitol are at various stages in the legal process. Two of them have even pleaded guilty at this point, one of them as recently as April.
Ricky Willden, of Oakhurst, originally faced eight charges. However, he took a plea agreement, pleading guilty in April to just one of them: Assaulting, Resisting, or Impeding Certain Officers. In exchange, he is cooperating with investigators.
Willden admits to spraying a U.S. Capitol Police officer with a chemical irritant and then throwing the cannister at officers, as well as entering the Capitol for a little less than 20 minutes, court documents show.
Willden’s attorney - Griffin Estes, assistant federal defender with the Eastern District of California - replied to ABC10’s request for comment saying, “On August 5th, Mr. Willden will be sentenced for his participation in the J6 incident. Our hope is to show the judge how Mr. Willden’s difficult life experiences led his conduct on that day, and to obtain the most compassionate sentence we can.”
Valerie Ehrke, from Colusa County, is the other Northern Californian who has pleaded guilty. Originally facing four charges, she – too – took a plea agreement, pleading guilty a year ago to: parading, demonstrating or picketing in a capitol building.
Ehrke admits to entering the Capitol building for a short time. Court documents show a screenshot of a Facebook post of hers, saying, “We made it inside, right before they shoved us all out. I took off when I felt pepper spray in my throat! Lol”
Sean McHugh, from Auburn, faces eight charges and is considering a plea agreement. In the meantime, he has a date set for a jury trial in October.
Prosecutors say he pushed a large metal sign into law enforcement officers and sprayed a chemical irritant at them. Screenshots of video from the Jan. 6 attack show a man prosecutors say is McHugh engaged in these exact activities outside the Capitol.
Tommy Allan, from Rocklin, faces six charges and is also considering a plea agreement. He has a plea hearing set for August.
Prosecutors say Allan entered the Capitol. Court documents show screenshots of a man prosecutors say is Allan standing in the Senate Chamber, where they say he stole documents from a desk.
Jorge Riley, of Sacramento, faces six charges and has a jury trial set for next April.
He posted many photos to his Facebook page that day, including selfies, shown in court documents and noted by ABC10 in the days following the attack. Riley also posted to his Facebook page that day, one post saying, “Hey We’re storming the Capitol…. what are you doing?”
Prosecutors say Riley entered the Capitol and – in a video later posted to Reddit – is seen admitting he entered House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office.
ABC10 reached out to attorneys for all five Northern Californians. Only Willden’s had responded as of Thursday night.
The public can search this database of those accused of crimes related to the Jan. 6 attack, however ABC10 found not all of the entries there are up-to-date. ABC10 found the latest information on each of the five Northern Californians by searching Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER), which provides electronic public access to federal court records.
“You know, a few of those are serious players and some serious charges,” Sacramento attorney Mark Reichel said, commenting on the five Northern Californians’ cases. “They appear to be more of a spontaneous sort, though, that believed all the propaganda and the energizing and the emotional, you know, information they were given to motivate them to go out there. But they weren't necessarily any higher-up that were in the chain of command to hear about this.”
Reichel is not connected to any of these cases, but as a former federal public defender with more than 30 years in federal practice handling national security cases, Reichel says he has been closely following developments in the Jan. 6 attack.
“I think Americans need to counter that by knowing what really happened and knowing how dangerous that really is,” he told ABC10.
He pointed out that since people accused of crimes have the right to be charged in the jurisdiction where the alleged crime took place, most of these cases – of people from all over the nation who came to Washington D.C. and allegedly attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 – are being tried in the U.S District Court for the District of Columbia, which is relatively small.
“There's only a few courtrooms. There's only a few prosecutors. There's only a few federal judges there. They’re not equipped to handle, you know, 3,000 people storming into the Congress,” Reichel said. “So as a result, they're giving really, really minor sentences, really minor charges, and hoping to just get this thing to go as fast as possible and get as many convictions as possible to get that part behind.”
He said he hopes people pay attention to the findings of the House of Representatives Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the United States Capitol, which aired in a hearing during primetime on Thursday.
“It's extremely important because democracy really only functions if there's an informed electorate,” Reichel said. “This is really a history lesson for everyone…The House of Representatives clearly sees this as a chance to lay the record very clearly about what happened, regardless of how you feel about impeachment or forgiveness. I'm not sure the House is saying, ‘Look, we want you to do anything.’ ‘We just want you to know what really happened. You do with it what you want.’”
He said the U.S. Department of Justice, working separately from the House Committee, will likely come out with more information – and indictments against high-level Trump Administration officials, potentially even including the former President himself – in the future.
“There's no dispute in my mind that the Justice Department is absolutely looking at an indictment for the President and his staff for seditious conspiracy for the actual violent attempt to overthrow the government of the United States,” Reichel said. “And I don't think in any stretch of the imagination that's not something they are working on.”
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