Several Capitol rioters pleading guilty to charges stemming from the Jan. 6 insurrection have remained defiant — prompting judges and prosecutors to consider revoking deals or seeking harsher sentences.
CNN cited the case of Boyd Camper, whose plea hearing was recently postponed after his attorney objected to an agreement saying he entered the Capitol "unlawfully."
"Then this plea doesn't go forward," a judge told Camper's lawyer. "If he's in there and doesn't think he did anything wrong, then there is no plea."
In another case, Capitol rioter Robert Reeder argued he should receive probation because he only went into the Capitol to look for water after getting pepper-sprayed, and faulted police for not effectively guarding the building.
"Mr. Reeder, who had never been in the Capitol before, was struck by the awe and the beauty of the Rotunda and began taking pictures and videos," his attorneys wrote.
Prosecutors responded by asking the judge to sentence Reeder to jail time, saying his statements were "a self-serving rewrite of history that sought to portray himself as a hapless tourist, absolve himself of any wrongdoing (and) place blame on others."
Another Capitol rioter, John Lolos, claimed during a plea hearing that police waived him in to the Capitol basement.
"I just wanted to get that off my chest (and) on the record," Lolos told the judge, prompting a DOJ prosecutor to ask if the defendant wanted to back out of a plea agreement. Lolos attorney responded that his client would stay in the agreement but may raise the issue at sentencing, when he faces up to six months in jail.
Meanwhile, in other cases, Capitol rioters have expressed remorse that turned out to be insincere.
Anna Morgan-Lloyd apologized to a judge for her "shameful" participation in a "savage display of violence," CNN reports. A day later, she went on Fox News and called the rioters "very polite," and said police were "relaxed" and "didn't tell anybody to leave."
Although it was too late to change Morgan-Lloyd's sentence of probation, her about-face caught the judge's attention, prompting him to later question whether another defendant was expressing "true acceptance of responsibility."
