WASHINGTON – A Donald Trump supporter who was among the first rioters to breach the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 has been sentenced. A plot to kill FBI special agents Investigating him for his crimes in the Capitol.
It was Edward Kelly has been convicted assault on law enforcement officers during last week’s Capitol attack and other crimes, pleaded guilty Wednesday to three additional charges: conspiracy to kill U.S. personnel; incitement to commit a violent crime; and threatening to influence or respond to federal officials.
The murder plot trial began Monday in Knoxville, Tennessee. NBC News affiliate WBIR in Knoxville informed the jury convicted Kelley on all three counts after only an hour of deliberation. Kelley will be sentenced in the murder plot on May 7, a month after his April 7 sentencing in the Capitol case.
Kelly’s trial in Knoxville included testimony from co-defendant Austin Carter, who pleaded guilty in November 2023. Carter told authorities that he and Kelley conspired to “Killing FBI agents“In December 2022, months after Kelly was arrested on the Jan. 6 charges. Prosecutors provided a list of approximately 37 members of law enforcement who worked on Kelly’s Jan. 6 case.
According to WBIR, Carter told jurors that he thought Kelly was headed for civil war and planned to attack the FBI’s Knoxville field office before deciding to target FBI employees who worked on his Jan. 6 case and wanted to strike first.
Christopher Roddy, who worked with Kelley in security and was an FBI informant, also testified at the trial, as did three FBI special agents who said the list was a threat.
Kelly, an anti-abortion activist, was wearing a TCAPP sweater that spelled out “The Church At Planned Parenthood” when she became the fourth rioter to breach the US Capitol. During his January 6 trial in Washington, the government argued that Kelly was armed with a gun when he stormed the Capitol. Although prosecutors indicated that Kelly was wearing a holster that could be concealed inside his pants and showed what they believed to be the “print” of a gun, they did not conclusively prove that claim, and that was not the point. their business.
At the time of the Jan. 6 attack, prosecutors said, Kelly’s wife texted him asking how things were going and writing that she didn’t believe “fake news.” Prosecutors said Kelley encouraged his wife to download Signal, an encrypted communications program.