Four SC family members who were ‘ringleaders’ in Jan. 6 Capitol riot sentenced to prison

Four members of a South Carolina family who acted as “ringleaders” to an unruly mob inside the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6 have been sentenced to stints in prison for their actions that day.

Linwood Robinson Sr.; his son, Linwood Robinson II; a younger son, Benjamin Robinson; and Brittany Robinson, the wife of Linwood Robinson II, will all go to prison for terms ranging from one to four months. They are among the 23 people from South Carolina so far arrested in the Capitol riot.

The Robinsons are from Indian Land in Lancaster County in upstate South Carolina, south of Charlotte and east of Rock Hill.

All four Robinsons were supporters of former President Donald Trump who had journeyed to Washington that day to attend his “Stop the Steal” rally, according to evidence in the case. During that rally, Trump and his allies falsely claimed his November 2020 election had been stolen by Democrats.

The Robinsons were sentenced in separate hearings Wednesday and Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C. Trump was in federal court Thursday in Washington, D.C., in a separate hearing after he was indicted in an alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election results..

In sentencing the Robinson family members to prison, U.S. Judge Amy Berman Jackson disregarded a plea from family attorney William Shipley of Honolulu to give them probation. Shipley argued they had been non-violent during their time in the Capitol.

Here are the sentences:

▪ Benjamin Robinson, 25, four months in prison.

▪ Linwood Robinson Sr., 60, two months in prison.

▪ Linwood Robinson II, 30, two months in prison.

▪ Brittany Robinson, 30, wife of Linwood II, one month in prison.

All pleaded guilty in March to the misdemeanor charge of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. Other charges against them — including disorderly conduct in a Capitol building and remaining in a restricted building — were dropped.

Prosecutors had wanted four months in prison for Benjamin Robinson and three months’ for the other three Robinsons.

Each Robinson must also pay $500 restitution that will go toward repaying the $2.9 million in damages the rioters did to the Capitol building.

Federal prosecutors had characterized all four Robinson family members as acting so aggressively during the time they were in the Capitol that they served as “ringleaders” for other mob members.

At one point, the Robinsons directed the crowd to the Speaker’s Lobby hallway where one rioter, Ashli Babbit, was fatally shot as a result of the rioters’ efforts to enter the House chamber, prosecutors wrote.. At one point, Brittany and Linwood II were chanting “Whose House? Our House!” according to evidence in the case.

Some of the evidence that allowed the FBI to identify the Robinsons consisted of numerous videos and photos taken inside the Capitol the day of the riot, according to court documents. Other evidence also included Facebook pages and geolocation data on Robinson Sr.’s cellphone.

Benjamin Robinson, who got the longest sentence, “engaged in violence when he kicked at the Speaker’s Lobby door even after police officers inside the House Chamber had drawn their weapons and prepared to shoot the invading mob,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo.

Prosecutors also noted that “as recently as June 2023, months after their guilty pleas, each of the Robinson defendants refused to accept responsibility or express any kind of remorse for the illegality of their actions.”

A government complaint in the case also alleged that the Robinsons, who were arrested in May 2022, had been among the first rioters into the Capitol and, once on the Senate side of the building, “breached the police line to gain access to the rest of the building.”

The Robinsons should have known that there was a violent attack on the Capitol taking place when they joined the mob, prosecutors wrote.

“At the time the Robinsons crossed the west lawn to the Northwest Stairs, rioters were violently engaging with police officers who were fighting to hold back the mob. Officers used pepper spray, smoke bombs, audible warnings to leave, and other crowd control measures that made it unmistakable that the West Front was no place for a peaceful demonstration,” prosecutors wrote.

Robinson attorney Shipley wrote in a memo to the judge that the Robinsons were not part of the violent groups that invaded the Capitol that day intending to do harm. Nor were they among the Capitol rioters who spontaneously committed acts of violence, Shipley wrote.

Instead, the Robinsons — who had not planned to march on the Capitol — were among a large group of people who were at the Capitol to protest “but remained primarily as spectators to what developed into a riot,” Shipley wrote.

The Robinsons had “traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend the planned and advertised ‘Stop the Steal’ rally at the invitation of rally organizers and then President Donald Trump. Their reason for attending the rally was to express their unhappiness and concerns over perceived irregularities of the 2020 presidential election as widely debated in the media for nearly two months at that point,” Shipley wrote.

By that time, some 60 lawsuits brought by Trump’s allies in battleground states alleging election fraud had failed. Trump’s own attorney general, William Barr, had also said publicly there was no fraud substantial enough to overturn the election results.

Another motive for the family to go to Washington was that the Robinsons’ car repair business had suffered during COVID, and the family had suffered economic woes, Shipley wrote.

On the day the Capitol was stormed, it was closed to the public.

Both the House and Senate were meeting for a ceremonial counting of electoral votes by then-Vice President Mike Pence. Once rioters breached the Capitol shortly after 2 p.m., senators and representatives fled in fear for their lives. The session did not begin again until after 8 pm after law enforcement cleared the area and force rioters to leave.

Since then, more than 1,069 defendants have been charged in nearly all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Nearly 600 have pleaded guilty to a variety of federal charges, according to the U.S Attorney’s office in Washington.

The Robinsons pled guilty in April.