Lancaster County, SC family pleads guilty to Jan. 6 Capitol riot charges

Four members of a South Carolina family who joined a mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, have pleaded guilty to their involvement, according to court records and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

On Thursday, Linwood Robinson II and his father, Linwood Robinson Sr. pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of “parading, picketing or demonstrating in a Capitol building.”

On Friday, Benjamin Robinson, 29, and his sister-in-law Brittany Robinson, 30, pleaded guilty to the same charge before U.S. Judge Amy Berman Jackson via a remote video hookup.

The offense carries a maximum six-month prison sentence. All four, who live in the Fort Mill area in northern Lancaster County, near the North Carolina line, will likely be sentenced within the next few months.

The four were arrested in May 2022 by the FBI.

A juvenile member of the family who accompanied them into the Capitol was not charged due to his age. In court records, the minor was identified only by their initials.

Court records said the family was captured on closed caption video footage and videos taken by other rioters and the media that broadcast their actions during the riot. Evidence also included Facebook pages and geolocation data on Robinson Sr.’s cellphone.

A complaint in their case said that the four and the minor were among the first rioters in the Capitol and “breached the police line to gain access to the rest of the building.” At the time, the Capitol grounds and buildings were closed to the public, and the Robinsons had to pass through broken police barricades to get onto the grounds and the Capitol, according to a statement of facts.

The Robinsons were among a crowd of people close to activist Ashli Babbit, who was shot and killed by a Capitol officer as she attempted to go through a window that led to a corridor to the House chambers, the complaint said.

“Escalating violence” had caused officers to retreat from the area, the complaint said.

At the time Babbit was shot climbing through the door, Benjamin Robinson was using “his body and foot to pound the door,” the statement of facts said. After the shot was fired, the entire Robinson family left the Capitol, the statement of facts said.

On Jan. 7, 2021, Benjamin Robinson wrote on Facebook that “I seen the girl (apparently Ashli Babbit) dropped and thats (sic) when I got dad and everyone and dragged them out of the building,” the statement of facts said.

On Jan. 16. 2021, Benjamin Robinson explored with a friend how to delete photos from Facebook, the statement of facts said.

The friend sent him a link to a video titled, “How to Permanently Delete Facebook Account,” according to the statement of facts court document.

Family part of 20 SC residents charged in riot

The Robinson family entered the Capitol through the Senate wing door at approximately 2:17 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021, around five minutes after the first rioters breached the building by breaking windows and forcing open the doors, the affidavit said.

The family then made their way from the Senate side of the Capitol to the House side, walking down a hall to the Capitol Crypt, breaching a police line and then proceeding along a long hallway toward the House wing door, the affidavit said. They then walked up a small spiral staircase to a corridor west of the Rotunda and Statuary Hall, where the House Speaker’s Office is located, according to the affidavit and evidence in their case.

“They walked into the Speaker’s Office suite for a few moments, and exited from across the suite through a different door,” the affidavit states. “Then they walked through Statuary Hall to join a growing crowd amassing outside of the House chamber. From there, they moved to an opening to the east and walked down the House corridors toward the southeast doors.”

At one point, the family joined a crowd chanting inside the Capitol, “Whose house? Our house!” according to a statement of facts.

At another point, Benjamin Robinson, Brittany Robinson and Linwood Robinson II waved to the crowd of rioters to follow them, the statement of facts said.

In all, they were in the Capitol approximately 30 minutes, according to a statement of facts.

The Robinsons had attended then-President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally before the riot and then walked to the Capitol, court records said. At the rally, Trump continued to repeat the unfounded allegation of widespread election fraud in 2020.

Twenty people from South Carolina have been arrested so far in connection with the breach of the Capitol.

Of those, 15 have now pleaded guilty and so far have received sentences ranging from probation to 44 months in prison.

More than 1,000 people from nearly every state have been charged with offenses related to the Capitol breach.

Approximately 340 of those have been charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding officers or employees. Some 140 police officers were assaulted Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol, according to the District of Columbia U.S. Attorney’s office.

The riot resulted in more than $2.8 million worth of damage to the Capitol, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.