Judge finds Polk County man guilty for actions at U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6

A federal judge has convicted the first Polk County resident to face trial on charges related to the U.S. Capitol attack.

U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols of the District of Columbia found Joshua Doolin of Polk City guilty Wednesday on all four counts following a seven-day bench trial held in Washington, D.C. Doolin had waived his right to a jury trial.

Doolin, 25, was convicted of civil disorder, a felony; entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds; and theft of government property.

In his original indictment, Doolin faced only misdemeanor charges. Prosecutors added the felony charge in a second indictment filed in July 2022.

Nichols also found co-defendant Michael Perkins of Plant City guilt on charges that included assaulting police officers and disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted area with a deadly or dangerous weapon and engaging in acts of physical violence while on the restricted Capitol grounds.

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Nichols also found co-defendant Michael Perkins of Plant City guilty on charges that included assaulting police officers and disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted area with a deadly or dangerous weapon.

Nichols is scheduled to announce sentences for Doolin and Perkins on July 13.

Doolin is one of six current or former Polk County residents indicted on charges related to the riots at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He and Perkins traveled to Washington, D.C., with a group that included Doolin’s cousins, Olivia Pollock and her brother, Jonathan Pollock, of Lakeland, and their friend Joseph Hutchinson III, formerly of Lakeland and now living in Georgia, according to court documents.

Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia alleged that Doolin moved together with the others from the Washington Monument to the U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6.

The Department of Justice, which released video and photos allegedly showing Doolin and the other defendants in arrest affidavits, did not claim that any of them entered the Capitol building.

The local contingent joined supporters of former President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., on the day that both houses of Congress met to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Trump refused to accept that his opponent, Joe Biden, had won the election, and he held a rally that morning on the Ellipse, about two miles from the U.S. Capitol. Trump urged supporters to march to the Capitol and pressure Congress not to ratify Biden’s election.

The prosecution rested its case on Monday, with the defense closing its arguments on Tuesday. Doolin testified during Tuesday’s final session of the trial, according to court records. A transcript had not yet been posted as of Wednesday.

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Kyle Ivey, Senior Pastor at Cleveland Heights Baptist Church in Lakeland, was also included on the witness list. Doolin’s wedding took place at the church in January 2022.

Prosecutors introduced at least a dozen witnesses from the FBI, the Metropolitan Police Department, the U.S. Capitol Police Department and the Secret Service. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Benet Kearney, Brendan Ballou and Matthew Moeder led the prosecution.

The Department of Justice National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section joined the prosecution, with assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida, according to a DOJ news release.

The FBI’s Tampa and Washington field offices led the investigation, drawing assistance from the Metropolitan Police Department and U.S. Capitol Police.

Photos provide evidence

Trump’s rally occurred on Doolin’s 23rd birthday. Prosecutors included text messages allegedly exchanged between Doolin and an unidentified person shortly before Trump’s speech at the Ellipse.

Doolin allegedly texted “Trump should be coming up any minute! Then to the Capital!”

The friend responded: “Don’t get killed on your birthday bro!”

Doolin allegedly replied, “I wouldn’t mind dying with my family storming the capital on my birthday!”

Photos included in the arrest affidavit show a man identified as Doolin wearing a tan jacket, a plaid shirt and a green cap. Doolin joined the others near the steps on the west side of the Capitol, where they and other rioters faced a line of police officers defending the building, according to the affidavit.

At one point, Doolin wielded a flagpole and pointed it at officers as he followed Jonathan Pollock in charging up the stairs, the affidavit says. Doolin apparently was deterred by chemical spray and dropped the flagpole, the affidavit says.

Doolin followed the others onto the Upper West Terrace, according to the affidavit. The charging document says Doolin and Pollock shouted to each other, with one saying, “We didn’t come this far just to push back the cops!”

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Prosecutors alleged that Doolin carried plastic zip ties tucked into his pants and carried over his shoulder a canister of riot-control irritant, the type used in MK-46 guns carried by Metropolitan Police officers, and a riot shield belonging to the U.S. Capitol Police.

By about 4:20 p.m., Jonathan Pollock and Doolin had advanced to an entrance to a passageway that connects the Lower West Terrace with the interior of the Capitol building, the affidavit says. At that point, Doolin, carrying both the chemical spray canister and the shield, joined a line of rioters pressing against officers defending the building and gestured to other rioters to approach the Capitol, prosecutors alleged.

FBI agents arrested Doolin, Hutchinson and Olivia Pollock in late June 2021, based on photo and video evidence and interviews with unidentified associates. Jonathan Pollock was not present when FBI agents raided the family’s property in the Kathleen area and has remained a fugitive.

The FBI has offered a reward of up to $30,000 for information leading to his arrest.

Olivia Pollock was scheduled to go on trial last week, along with Doolin and Perkins. But she and Hutchinson are now both listed as fugitives after they apparently disabled their ankle GPS monitors on Feb. 27 and fled, according to the FBI.

Authorities released Doolin on bond under pretrial conditions that limited his travels and required him to surrender all weapons and wear a GPS ankle monitor. Doolin twice asked to have the monitor removed, arguing that it impeded his ability to make a living, but Nichols refused the requests.

Doolin's motions fail

Doolin’s lawyer, Allen Orenberg of Potomac, Maryland, filed a series of motions throughout the period leading to the trial. He asked for the trial to be moved to Florida, claiming that Doolin could not receive a fair trial in Washington, D.C. because of media coverage of the Jan. 6 attack. Nichols, appointed to the District Court by Trump in 2019, rejected that request.

Orenberg filed a motion to prevent prosecutors from using certain words and phrases in the trial, such as “rioters,” “breach,” “confrontation,” “anti-government extremism,” “insurrectionists” and “mob.” He also asserted Doolin’s right to a “public authority defense,” arguing that Doolin thought he had permission from Trump to be on the U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021.

Doolin requested in February 2022 that his case be separated from those of his co-defendants. His lawyer argued in a filing that Doolin faced “a substantial risk of prejudice” in being tried along with the others, who faced more serious charges and had made pre-trial statements that could be interpreted as admissions of guilt.

Nichols agreed to sever Doolin’s case from the others and set a trial date for last September. But Doolin’s lawyer later asked for a delay, and the judge again grouped his case with those of the co-defendants in scheduling the trial for March.

Orenberg sought to include testimony from a man who described Doolin’s efforts to protect an injured police officer from other protestors outside the Capitol. Prosecutors asked Nichols to preclude such “good conduct” arguments.

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Nichols denied a motion by Doolin’s lawyer to exclude mention of the chemical spray canister that he allegedly seized at the Capitol and to dismiss the charge of theft of government property related to the device.

Orenberg argued that Doolin thought the canister and riot shield he picked up had been abandoned. In response, prosecutors said the shield was marked with a U.S. Capitol Police insignia, and that Doolin later bragged about taking the shield, which he kept and autographed.

Doolin had been hired as an emergency medical technician by Polk County Fire Rescue shortly before his arrest in June 2021. The county fired him soon after reports of the arrest.

Perkins, 39, is identified in court records as a close friend of Doolin and the Pollocks. In the arrest affidavit, prosecutors alleged that Perkins thrust a flagpole into the chest of a police officer in advancing toward the Capitol building. Perkins then used the flagpole to strike another officer, the affidavit alleges.

The Jan. 6 attack resulted in five deaths and injuries to dozens of police officers, according to federal authorities. The intrusion into the Capitol building also caused about $2.9 million in damages.

At least 1,000 people have been arrested on charges related to the U.S. Capitol attack, and Florida leads all states in the number of defendants.

As of Wednesday, more than 500 had pleaded guilty and more than 50 had been convicted in trials, the Department of Justice reported.

Nichols has rescheduled the trials of Olivia Pollock and Hutchinson for August, assuming they surrender or are captured by then.

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Judge finds Polk County man guilty for actions at Capitol on Jan. 6