Citing lack of remorse, prosecutors seek prison for Jan. 6 defendant from California

As Jorge Aaron Riley prepared to travel to Washington, D.C., ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory, he bought six ninja combat throwing knives and left a will leaving behind the knives and “anything in my house.”

The 45-year-old Army veteran and corresponding secretary of the California Republican Assembly had been preparing for the trip for weeks, posting about his plans on social media and declaring “Joe Biden IS NOT MY PRESIDENT.”

“I’m going for the war,” Riley declared in one post.

Once in the nation’s capital, he attended then-President Donald Trump’s speech on the Ellipse, adorned his face with what he called “war paint” and marched to the U.S. Capitol, where he was one of the first people to enter the building.

He marched to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, where some of her staff were hiding under desks and tables in fear of the rioters, and he wandered around the building refusing police orders to leave before he finally exited an hour after arriving.

These are the actions federal prosecutors describe in court papers and say have earned Riley a 21-month prison sentence and three years of supervised release when he faces U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta on Wednesday.

“For an hour, Riley caused mayhem in the Capitol, joining the riotous mob throughout the Capitol, and refusing to heed police officers’ commands to ‘get out of the building now,’” Assistant U.S. Attorney Troy Edwards wrote in a sentencing memo filed in court. “Ultimately, the officers had to get physical to get Riley and his fellow rioters out, where he promptly detailed to another rioter his actions and why he did it: to ‘stop the steal’ and ‘take his country back.’

“The nature and circumstances of Riley’s offense was of the utmost seriousness, and fully support the government’s recommended sentence of 21 months’ imprisonment.”

Riley’s lawyer, longtime Sacramento defense attorney Tim Zindel, sees it differently, arguing that his client “didn’t board the plane to Washington on January 5th expecting to return home a felon” and that Riley did not actually take his throwing knives or any other weapons to Washington.

“His involvement in the January 6th protest has cost him dearly,” Zindel wrote in his sentencing memo to the judge. “In that darkness, he asks the Court to sentence him to the time he has already served (36 days) and to permit him to serve the remainder of his guideline term in home detention so that he may continue to parent his one-year-old daughter and continue to address the long-standing injuries resulting from his years of military service.”

Riley, who pleaded guilty in March to a single felony count of obstructing an official proceeding, is scheduled to be the third of four Sacramento-area Jan. 6 defendants to face sentencing.

Valerie Elaine Ehrke of Arbuckle received probation, and Tommy Frederick Allan of Rocklin is serving a 21-month sentence at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles. Auburn construction worker Sean Michael McHugh is due in court Thursday in a case where prosecutors are seeking a sentence of more than 10 years.

Zindel argues that Riley deserves leniency because he believed Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen, and that Riley was following the urging of his commander-in-chief when he entered the Capitol.

“More than two and a half years later, even with the former President under felony indictments in this district and elsewhere, millions of Americans continue to believe this claim and hope that President Trump will retake the White House, where he has vowed to pardon all the protesters he encouraged to come to Washington on January 6,” Zindel wrote. “While the law condemns Mr. Riley’s actions and requires the Court to impose just punishment, millions of citizens would regard Mr. Riley as a patriot who was motivated by the greater good.”

Zindel argues that Riley did not attack any officers while at the Capitol and that he did not force his way in but simply walked through a door with others.

He contends Riley, an American Indian who never knew his father, grew up in an abusive household where his mother and he were beaten by his stepfather.

“As a child he had to parent his own siblings, learning how to cook and clean when he was in the third grade,” Zindel wrote. “He says that, when he was a boy, ‘I gave up on happiness,’ and went years without smiling.”

He added that Riley is 100% disabled from “frequently carrying a heavy rucksack and an enormous machine gun” during his four years in the Army, and that at times he has been homeless.

Today, Zindel wrote, Riley “has enjoyed peace and stability over the last year” after moving in with his girlfriend, with whom he has a 1-year-old daughter named Reagan.

He noted that Riley’s friends have written letters on his behalf citing his “kindness, generosity, patriotism, sincerity, remorse, and so on.”

The government disputes that Riley has exhibited any signs of remorse, noting that immediately after the insurrection he posted a number of messages on Facebook boasting of his actions and castigating then-Vice President Mike Pence for certifying the Electoral College vote tally for Biden after the Capitol had been cleared of rioters.

“You broke my heart you f-----,” Riley wrote, according to court filings.

Eight days after the insurrection, as video of Riley describing his actions at the Capitol began to surface, the Sacramento and California Republican Assemblies emailed him demanding his immediate resignation because of “your illegal, felony actions at the U.S. Capitol,” court records say.

Riley replied to the demand citing Republican leaders as “Unpatriotic Non-Veterans Judging Me.”

“I will at the request of you cowardly do-nothing unpatriotic bastards resign my post so that I don’t ‘Embarrass’ you do-nothing cowards,” he wrote, according to court filings. “It was my honor to serve my country and my party that apparently left me.

“God bless America, and President Trump.”

(Two months after the Capitol Riot, the Sacramento Republican Assembly honored Riley at a dinner meeting “for his long service on the group’s board.”)

The government argues that “Riley has now technically accepted responsibility by pleading guilty,” but notes that at the March hearing during which he pleaded guilty he “demonstrated a complete lack of remorse.”

“At the end of his plea hearing, he announced to the court that he ‘wore his best Trump tie’ before leaving the courtroom,” prosecutors wrote. “After the hearing, Riley promptly attended a nightly vigil for January 6 defendants outside of the D.C. Jail, talking with inmates on the phone, joining in chants and songs with them, and standing under a ‘Prisoner of War – J6 – You Are Not Forgotten’ flag.”