A 53-year-old Colorado man has been found guilty on three felony charges related to the Jan. 6 insurrection, including assaulting, resisting and impeding officers with a deadly weapon.
Jeffrey Sabol of Kittredge entered the U.S. Capitol with a trauma kit, hunting knife, helmet and zip ties after traveling to Washington, D.C. with members of what he called a “neighborhood watch.” The group attended a rally by former President Donald Trump at the White House Ellipse before marching to the Capitol.
He was convicted in a stipulated bench trial.
Video shows Sabol assaulting multiple officers. He was part of a crowd that attempted to force its way through police barricades on the Capitol’s west entrance, where he was pushed down a set of stairs by riot police. Sabol and a second rioter grabbed the visor of a Metropolitan Police Officer.
Later, Sabol and two others assaulted a Capitol police officer who was defending the building, punching him and pulling him down the stairs into the crowd, where the man was beaten further.
Sabol was also found guilty of aiding and abetting, federal robbery and obstruction of official proceedings. He will be sentenced Jan. 19, 2024.
In the days after Jan. 6, Sabol tried to cover up his involvement in the riot, according to law enforcement. He told friends to delete messages he’d sent them, microwaved his laptop and dropped his phone into a body of water.
Sabol was arrested on Jan. 27 in upstate New York after officers pulled him over for driving erratically. He told them he was wanted for the FBI for his role in the insurrection. Authorities say he had made plans to fly to Zurich, Switzerland to evade arrest. But when that fell through, he tried to kill himself.
Because of his attempt to flee the country, a judge ordered Sabol held through the trial and sentencing.
According to the FBI, more than 1,106 individuals have been arrested in all 50 states for charges related to the Jan. 6 insurrection. At least 14 of them are from Colorado.
