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- An Indiana male this 7 days pleaded guilty to assaulting officers through the Capitol assault.
- Prosecutors say Mark Mazza applied a stolen police baton to strike officers throughout the siege.
- Mazza, who introduced a revolver to the attack, was also billed with carrying a gun without the need of a license.
An Indiana person who brought a loaded gun to the January 6, 2021 US Capitol riot — and then subsequently misplaced the revolver amid the chaos of the insurrection — pleaded guilty this week to carrying a weapon with out a license and using a law enforcement baton to assault officers all through the attack.
Mark Andrew Mazza, 57, at first confronted 13 charges stemming from his part in the siege but on Friday agreed to plead responsible to two counts, together with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers with a unsafe weapon, and carrying a pistol devoid of a license.
Mazza faces a utmost of 20 years in prison on the assault demand, as properly as up to five years in prison on the firearms demand, in accordance to a press launch from the US Attorney’s Business for the District of Columbia. The two counts also carry achievable fiscal penalties.
Prosecutors say Mazza drove from Indiana to Washington, DC, in a rental automobile to attend the “End the Steal” rally that preceded the insurrection. In accordance to court docket files, Mazza brought a Taurus revolver loaded with 3 shotgun shells and two hollow issue bullets to the rally and then to the Capitol grounds as the siege unfolded.
At some position in the course of the attack, Mazza lost possession of the gun, he acknowledged in plea papers. Upon returning to Indiana two times afterwards, Mazza filed a untrue police report alleging the dropped revolver experienced been stolen from his auto at an Ohio on line casino. He later on advised investigators that he lied about the gun simply because he was afraid a member of “Antifa” may possibly receive the weapon and his title was “all above it,” CNN claimed.
Prosecutors reported Mazza was component of a mob of rioters close to the Reduce West Terrace tunnel who clashed with at least 20 law enforcement officers all through the assault. According to court docket paperwork, Mazza held open up a established of doors at the tunnel entrance, making it possible for rioters to bodily assault officers with batons, sticks, and stolen riot shields.
At 1 point, Mazza took a baton from an officer’s hand and employed it to strike other officers in the tunnel, hitting just one on the arm, in accordance to prosecutors. Immediately after hitting the officer, court docket data say Mazza yelled, “This is our fucking house! We personal this dwelling!”
Mazza took the stolen baton with him soon after leaving the scene and, upon returning to Indiana, applied a hand-held rotary software to remove the weapon’s serial selection markings, according to prosecutors. He was arrested in November 2021.
Mazza is established to be sentenced in September. An attorney for Mazza did not immediately reply to Insider’s request for remark.
At least 865 individuals have been arrested for taking aspect in the insurrection and much more than 300 rioters have pleaded guilty.
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