Professional-Trump protestor Ray Epps, focus of Jan. 6 conspiracy theories, charged with disorderly conduct

Ray Epps, the pro-Trump protester who’s the focus of right-wing conspiracy theories in regards to the authorities orchestrating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, was charged with disorderly conduct for his actions that day.

Federal prosecutors lodged that single rely in opposition to Epps on Monday in an info, a sort of charging doc routinely used when defendants have agreed to plead responsible. That submitting notes that he was on restricted grounds on the U.S. Capitol through the riot.

A plea settlement listening to for Epps is ready to happen on Zoom on Wednesday at 3 p.m. ET earlier than U.S. District Judge James Boasberg.

A former member of the right-wing Oath Keepers group, Epps traveled to Washington, D.C., to protest on Jan. 6 when a joint session of Congress started assembly on the U.S. Capitol to verify that President Joe Biden had defeated then-President Donald Trump within the Electoral College vote.

Then-Vice President Mike Pence was presiding over the session earlier than a horde of Trump supporters invaded the Capitol, inflicting lawmakers to flee.

Epps fell underneath suspicion by others on the fitting after he was seen on video taken on Jan. 5, 2021, exhibiting him on the streets encouraging others to “go into the Capitol.”

He since has been on the heart of a false conspiracy idea that the FBI provoked the riot. Some mainstream conservative voices in media and authorities questioned his actions and questioned why he had not been criminally charged by the Department of Justice alongside with different protestors who had been on the Capitol on Jan.6.

In July, Epps filed a defamation lawsuit in opposition to Fox News and its former opinion host Tucker Carlson over their protection of him.

In Monday’s submitting in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., Epps was charged with one rely of knowingly participating in “disorderly and disruptive conduct” with the “intent to impede and disrupt” the federal government’s exercise going down on Jan. 6.

Epps’ conduct “did in reality impede and disrupt the orderly conduct of Government enterprise and official capabilities,” U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves wrote within the two-page info.

An lawyer for Epps in his defamation lawsuit didn’t instantly reply to CNBC’s requests for touch upon him being criminally charged.