Infowars host Owen Shroyer pleads guilty to joining mob of Trump supporters during Capitol riot

Infowars host Owen Shroyer pleaded guilty Friday to a charge related to his participation in the January 2021 storming of the Capitol.

Shroyer, a longtime associate of disgraced conspiracy theorist and Infowars owner Alex Jones, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of illegally entering a restricted area on Jan. 6, 2021, when rioters invaded the Capitol Hill building in an effort to disrupt a joint session of Congress to certify the 2020 election results.

The charge carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison.

The 33-year-old far-right personality, who never went inside the building during the insurrection, admitted to joining a mob of Donald Trump supporters outside the Capitol and addressing the crowd using a megaphone.

“Now the Democrats are posing as communists, but we know what they really are: they’re just tyrants, they’re tyrants,” he shouted, according to court papers. “And so today, on January 6, we declare death to tyranny! Death to tyrants!”

After learning that individuals had breached the Capitol, Shroyer allegedly said he would also head there, even though the “Capitol’s exterior grounds were closed to the public and surrounded by law enforcement officers, barricades, and signage,” prosecutors said.

“We have to let our Congressmen and women know, and have to let Mike Pence know, they stole the election, we know they stole it, and we aren’t going to accept it,” Shroyer continued shouting to the crowd as he walked.

Shroyer said he went to the nation’s capital in January 2021 with Alex Jones and other people who worked for the far-right conspiracy theory website.

He was charged in August 2021 with four misdemeanor counts, including violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds and knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority.

Shroyer claims he went to Washington as a journalist to cover Trump’s “Stop the Steal Rally” for his Infowars show.

His attorney, Norm Pattis, has accused prosecutors of interfering with his rights to “protest, speak freely and report the news.”

“The First Amendment permits and protects the rights of individuals to assemble and engage in demonstrations that confront and criticize the government, even when those demonstrations become rowdy or unruly,” Pattis wrote.

But according to prosecutors, his “claimed status as a journalist does not immunize him from criminal prosecution.”

Hundreds of people have been charged with federal crimes in connection to the January 2021 insurrection.

On Wednesday, Daniel “D.J.” Rodriguez, who attacked a police officer with a Taser, was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Shroyer’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for Sept. 12.

With News Wire Services