NC man charged in Jan. 6 riot on the DC Capitol says charges against him are overkill

Former Marine Lee Stutts said he traveled from his home on Lake Norman to the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021, for two reasons:

“I went up there to support our country and to whup somebody’s ass from antifa,” the 46-year-old Terrell man told The Charlotte Observer in an exclusive interview on Friday. “We have to protect the people.”

By antifa, Stutts was referring to the far-left, anti-facist activists whom President Donald Trump blamed for the protests against racial injustice across America in 2020.

On Jan. 6, 2021, after a speech by Donald Trump, several thousand people ascended on the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. There, a crowd broke through police barricades, breached the building and attempted to stop the joint session of Congress where electoral votes were being counted in the 2020 presidential election.

Four people died that day, WTOP reported: a woman shot by a police officer; two men of natural causes; and a woman of an accidental amphetamine overdose. Brian Sicknick, a Capitol Police officer assaulted at the scene, died a day later of a stroke that was ruled natural, according to the station.

Stutts is accused of pushing and shoving officers with his hands, a barricade, a battering ram and a bike rack as he helped lead the Capitol breach, according to the arrest warrant affidavit.

Stutts told the Observer that he thought antifa would be at the Capitol, but he instead encountered walls of law enforcement officers with shields and batons.

“I wore a helmet and had my fists,” Stutts said. “I roughhoused a little bit, but I didn’t punch them, none of that,” he said, referring to the assaults against law enforcement officers defending the Capitol.

Stutts faces a preliminary hearing Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on charges of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers with a deadly or dangerous weapon and obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder, both felonies.

He was arrested and charged in November and is free pending the outcome of his case.

A preliminary hearing “is like a mini-trial” where a judge determines if probable cause exists that a crime was committed by a defendant, according to the U.S. Department of Justice website.

If so, the judge then schedules a trial. If not, the judge dismisses the charges.

What the FBI says about Stutts’ role on Jan. 6

On Jan. 6, 2021, Stutts sported a “2020 Trump Keep America Great” shirt over a long-sleeved black and gray camouflage print hoodie, according to the affidavit filed by an unnamed FBI special agent.

He also wore an American flag and eagle print neck gaiter and had a backpack on.

After joining a “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., Stutts darted through broken fencing and over a wall to join fellow rioters on the west plaza of the Capitol, according to the affidavit.

“He can be seen waiving (sic) other rioters on as he made a beeline for the line of U.S. Capitol Police officers blocking the way to the southwest steps of the Capitol,” the agent says in the affidavit.

Stutts wrapped his arms around an officer from behind and shoved an officer from behind with his hands, according to the indictment.

Body-cam and closed-circuit police video also show Stutts assaulting four other officers after more police arrived to try to hold their line with metal bike racks, the FBI agent said.

FBI: ‘Stutts was one of the rioters leading the way’

Stutts and other rioters later moved a large sign on wheels with a metal frame toward the police line and barricade. “The rioters used the sign as a battering ram against officers attempting to hold the line,” the agent said.

Stutts then grabbed the bike rack barricade beneath the sign and pushed it toward the officers, according to the affidavit.

After police took the sign from the rioters, video shows Stutts throwing a water bottle at the police line, the FBI agent said.

Later that afternoon, “Stutts was one of the rioters leading the way” in a final breaking of the police line, the agent said. “After the Plaza was overrun, Stutts could be observed raising his arms and pumping his fists in a celebratory manner as police officers retreated from the oncoming swarm of rioters.”

Charges are overkill, Stutts says

Stutts told the Observer he barely saw any officers when he was among the first to arrive on the Capitol grounds that day.

“If there’d been ten guards, I wouldn’t have gone up there (toward the Capitol),” he said. “I never even thought about going inside the Capitol (or) busting out windows.”

He said he eventually found himself caught in a crowd being shoved at by officers. He saw untold numbers of FBI agents fire rubber bullets at the crowd, he said, which only further enraged people.

“You can’t put 200 FBI agents in a crowd and firing rubber bullets” and not expect to “get people fired up,” he said. “I was right there when a guy got shot in the face with a rubber bullet.”

He said he was pepper-sprayed so badly that he had to back away at one point. In its criminal complaint against him, he said, the FBI said he had “retreated,” falsely implying that he’d been attacking the officers, he told the Observer.

He said the charges against him are overkill.

“I shoved at them, and for that I face up to 25 years (in prison?)“ he asked. “For tossing a water bottle at them?”

How is Stutts expected to plea?

Stutts told the Observer he will plead not guilty, even if his lawyer thinks he’ll get a lighter sentence by admitting to the offenses.

His lawyer, William Lee Shipley Jr. of Hawaii, didn’t return three messages from the Observer on Friday. Shipley has defended at least two dozen others charged in the Jan. 6 assaults, The Maryland Daily Record in Baltimore reported.

“It’s not my side,” Stutts told the Observer on Friday. “It’s the truth. Like I told the FBI, I ain’t got nothing to hide, and if anybody wants to argue with me, I’ll argue with them. I want people to know the truth.”

Stutts became at least the 31st North Carolinian to be charged in the Jan. 6 attack.

Stutts joined at least 1,200 others from all 50 states who’ve been charged in connection with the Capitol breach, which caused $2.7 million in damage.

His case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the Department of Justice National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section. U.S. Attorney Dena King’s Charlotte-based office is assisting.