An Ohio man who said that antifa was responsible for rioting at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 pleaded guilty to doing just that, Law&Crime reports.
Stephen Michael Ayres, 39, pleaded guilty this Wednesday to engaging in disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds. He also admitted that he traveled to D.C. to attend the “Stop the Steal” rally just before the riot started.
From Law&Crime:
According to prosecutors, Ayres entered the Capitol through the Senate Wing doors at around 2:51 p.m., after a makeshift barricade set up by Capitol police had been breached by other rioters. He remained inside the building for around 10 minutes.
The next day, Ayres was featured in a video posted to YouTube in which he and two other people were talking about Jan. 6.
The video was labeled: “It was all Antifa breaking into the Capitol 1-6-2021.”
“It’s not over, trust me,” a man—not Ayres—on the video said. “The purpose of today was to expose [then-Vice President Mike Pence] as a traitor.”
“The American people are not going to let this slide, especially after today,” a woman on the video said.
“Yup,” Ayres responded, adding that “fake news” media would not accurately report on what happened at the Capitol, but that they had “seen it all” and gathered “footage all over the place on the Capitol.”
As Law&Crime points out, to this day there is no evidence that antifa participated in the Capitol riot as some pro-Trump conspiracy theorists have claimed.
Ayres was first charged in February 2021 alongside Matthew Perna, who also stormed the Capitol that day.
Perna pleaded guilty in December to obstruction of Congress, a felony technically punishable by up to 20 years in prison, and three related misdemeanor charges, but died by suicide in late February just weeks before he was scheduled to be sentenced.
Ayres faced up to a year in jail but a plea agreement cut that potential sentence down to 0-6 months due to his lack of criminal history and the fact that he didn’t engage in any physical violence.
