Kellye SoRelle, former counsel and stand-in president of the far-right Oath Keepers group, was sentenced to prison for obstructing justice and instructing members to delete evidence related to the January 6th Capitol attack. SoRelle pleaded guilty to the charges as part of a deal that saw several other offenses dropped. The sentencing comes amid speculation of potential pardons for January 6th defendants by former President Donald Trump.
With pardons for January 6th rioters by President-elect Donald Trump potentially just days away, former counsel and onetime stand-in president to the far-right Oath Keepers Kellye SoRelle was sentenced on Friday. SoRelle pleaded guilty to obstructing justice and telling members of the extremist group to delete texts after January 6, 2021. She was ordered to prison for 26 months plus 36 months of supervised release.
SoRelle was also ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution and complete 120 hours of community service. SoRelle's lawyer had requested the judge to wait until at least March to render the sentence, but the judge was unwilling to delay any longer.Another January 6th defendant, Jessica Crowl, a member of the Ohio State Regular Militia, was found guilty at a bench trial in July 2023 of conspiracy to obstruct an official congressional proceeding and impeding officers. She marched up the Capitol steps behind Oath Keeper Jessica Watkins and others on January 6th. A third defendant, Thomas Beeks, was acquitted of the conspiracy charge after all other charges were dropped. Beeks denied ever being a formal member of the Oath Keepers and told prosecutors that while he might have associated with them, it was only because he had been misled by the group. SoRelle, meanwhile, faced similar charges, including conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, and obstruction of justice for the tampering of evidence. When she was first indicted, she pleaded not guilty to everything. That changed several months later when she struck a deal with federal prosecutors. According to the Justice Department, SoRelle assumed leadership of the Oath Keepers once the group’s founder Elmer “Stewart” Rhodes — who doubled as her boss and, for a time, boyfriend — was arrested on seditious conspiracy charges. The newfound role was a natural fit, prosecutors argued, because SoRelle had already spent more than a year peddling pro-Trump conspiracy theories of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. She was intimately close to Rhodes and trusted by him, U.S. attorneys said. But after all hell broke loose on January 6th, prosecutors said SoRelle acted as Rhodes’ conduit, using her cell phone to share his messages with the group surreptitiously. In those messages, she told members of the Oath Keepers to delete their text chains or other communications that could be used against them in court later. SoRelle and Rhodes had fled Washington, D.C., together by car after January 6th, traveling back to Texas as Rhodes weighed how the Oath Keepers could regroup and amass more weapons if needed for another uprising once Biden was formally inaugurated. When Rhodes took the stand in his own seditious conspiracy case, he testified under oath that it was SoRelle who had instructed him — not the other way around — to nuke chats and texts that discussed what Oath Keepers were up to before, during and after January 6th. One of the texts found on SoRelle’s phone, for example, showed her telling Oath Keepers after January 6th: “Per SR, clean up all your chats.” “SR” was shorthand for “Stewart Rhodes,” SoRelle told the judge last year when she went before him to formally change her plea. Half of the charges she faced, including conspiracy to obstruct proceedings in the Capitol on January 6th, were dropped in the bargain, and she copped to telling Oath Keepers to delete messages. SoRelle was often shoulder-to-shoulder with Rhodes as the Oath Keeper founder publicly called on Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and raise members of the group to his side. She attended private calls orchestrated by Rhodes where he discussed plans to stop the transfer of power, and SoRelle was also the former counsel to Latinos for Trump and was present for a key meeting between Rhodes and Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio on the eve of the insurrection. On January 6th, SoRelle never went inside the Capitol but was with Rhodes stalking its grounds and livestreaming the violence. She was heard in a livestream from the day urging: “They broke the barrier, they got up there, they may end up inside before it’s all said and done, and that’s OK, too!” As the rioting was erupting and roughly a half hour before Oath Keepers breached the Capitol, SoRelle sent a text to Oath Keepers leadership, saying they were “acting like the founding fathers.” Throughout the day, SoRelle seemed to relish in the attack, writing that it was “hilarious,” and she agreed with Rhodes when he remarked to her that lawmakers inside the Capitol were “shitting their pants” inside. As she awaited trial, SoRelle underwent a mental competency evaluation. Both prosecutors and her defense attorney agreed she wasn’t fit to stand trial. The precise reasons she was deemed incompetent were kept under seal, and public court records only attributed the decision to a “mental disease or defect.
Politics Justice January 6Th Oath Keepers Kellye Sorelle Seditious Conspiracy Capitol Attack Donald Trump Pardon Justice Department
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